Daylight & Architecture: Magazine by Velux

DAYLIGHT &
ARCHITECTURE
SPRING 2008Issue 08 PATTERNS 10 Euro
SPRING 2008Issue 08 PATTERNS 10 Euro
Magazine by
VELUX
Daylight & Architecture Magazine by velux
daylight & architecture

magazine by velux
SPRING 2008 Issue 08
Publisher
Michael K. Rasmussen
Website
www.velux.com/da
VELUX Editorial team

Per Arnold Andersen
Christine Bjrnager
Nicola Ende
Lone Feifer
Lotte Kragelund
Torben Thyregod
E-mail
da@velux.com
Gesellschaft fr KnowhowTransfer Editorial team

Thomas Geuder
Annika Dammann
Jakob Schoof
Translation and re-write
Tony Wedgwood
Photo editors
Torben Eskerod
Adam Mrk
Art direction & design
Stockholm Design Lab
Per Carlsson
www.stockholmdesignlab.se
Cover and inside front
cover photography
Joakim Eskildsen
www.joakimeskildsen.com
Print run
80,000 copies
ISSN 1901-0982
The views expressed in articles
appearing in Daylight & Architecture
are those of the authors and not
necessarily shared by the publisher.
2008 VELUX Group.
VELUX and VELUX logo are
registered trademarks used under
licence by the VELUX Group.
VELUX
EDITORIAL
IMPRINTS
Touch the earth lightly Aboriginal proverb

What traces, what footprint, will our civilisation leave behind in 500, 1,000 or
10,000 years? This question has often been asked by philosophers and other people capable of thinking beyond the limits of their era. Today it is gaining a new
significance, as global warming and resource scarcity are putting human society to the test. The way the built environment has been planned - from macro
city planning to individual habitable units - has always had a significant influence
on human footprints, and architects and planners have historically had important influence on many aspects of human life, from energy use to public health.
Today, a new set of challenges has arisen. How to enable human beings to
reduce their ecological footprint? According to the World Wildlife Fund, we are
currently over-using the planets resources as well as its capacity to absorb our
waste (including carbon dioxide) by a factor 1.3. Or in their words, we would
need 1.3 Planets Earth to satisfy our resource hunger. A typical Western European would need as much as three planets a figure that is still rising.
A turnaround of this trend will not come by itself. Like many other stakeholders, architects, engineers, planners and the building industry are required to take
part in the effort to reverse it. It will have to be an effort at all levels, from urban
planning to building to product design. This issue of Daylight & Architecture discusses the human ecological footprint from a variety of angles. We take a look at
cities and their efforts to become greener, we explore how lightness in product
design and architecture relates to sustainability, and we describe the joint effort
of planners and users to make buildings more resource-efficient. Finally, we take
a look at how the WWF initiative One Planet Living providing places for people
to live happily with a reduced ecological footprint works in practice.
For decades, the Australian architect Glenn Murcutt has demonstrated a
committed approach to reducing the footprint of his buildings. Murcutts designs embody the Aboriginal proverb touch this earth lightly: a perfect building in Murcutts sense is the one that leaves no traces behind once it is removed
from its site. To achieve this, Murcutt takes into account literally all the external influences on a building, not only the vegetation of the site, its climate and
irrigation patterns, daylight and natural ventilation, but also the supply of building materials and energy.
As VELUX is committed to creating better living conditions, and to making
buildings more energy efficient, we would like to discuss the themes of sustainability, resource efficiency and low energy consumption. This issue of
Daylight&Architecture raises a series of issues that will provide a platform for
this discussion.
We wish you a pleasant read of Daylight & Architecture 08.
18
70
76
78
92
98
104
107
now
VELUX Editorial
Contents
Now
Discourse by Michael Mehaffy
Mankind and architecture
Green Urbanism
Patterns
7 EUROPE
Daylighting details
Energy Design
Australian Light
VELUX Insight
Glenn Murcutt:
Touching the Earth Lightly
Reflections
The Knack of Lightness
VELUX Dialogue
One Planet Living
Books
Reviews
Recommendations
Preview
Ross Lovegrove lights up the Viennese nights with

solar energy. Brre Sthre transports museum visitors on a journey into unfamiliar worlds. Daylight
planning made easy with the VELUX Daylight Visualizer. Plus: Topical examples of daylight architecture from Europe and the USA.
Patterns
7 Europe
Mankind
AND Architecture
GREEN URBANISM
Since 2006, over half the worlds population has

lived in towns and cities. If this trend continues, the
worlds urban centres will need to find a more sustainable system of managing their economies. In
this article, Timothy Beatley and Peter Newman explain why ecological urban planning is about more
than erecting wind turbines and solar panels. It also
entails a complete rethink of traffic planning, establishing fair trade systems and, just as importantly,
the visible return of nature to our towns and cities.
18
daylighting DETAILS
ENERGY DESIGN
70
reflections
THE KNACK OF
LIGHTNESS
All according to plan? When it comes to the energy performance of major buildings, this has long
since ceased to always be the case. Modern building technology has become too complex, the behaviour of users too idiosyncratic. To really make
the most of energy saving potential, buildings
also need to be monitored and optimized in everyday use. Norbert Fisch, Stefan Plesser and Thomas Wilken explain how this can be done and what
can be discovered along the way.
VELUX Insight
GLENN MURCUTT:
TOUCHING THE EARTH
LIGHTLY
92
Lightweight construction is not just a question

of aesthetics, but also of economy and ecology
this was the realization reached some 70 years
ago by Buckminster Fuller. In this article, Dutch designer Ed van Hinte talks about the approach taken
by modern-day designers and industry to Fullers
intellectual legacy, and the materials and design
forms this involves today.
VELUX DIALOGUE
ONE PLANET LIVING
98
Living a sustainable life in practice using minimal

resources this is the aim embraced by One Planet
Living, a joint initiative by the World Wildlife Fund
for Nature and the BioRegional Foundation. In an interview, Project Leader Sumeet Manchanda highlights his vision of how such a future could work:
He believes that a sustainable lifestyle should not
be unnecessarily difficult to achieve. And it should
engender a sense of satisfaction with life.
78
He is hailed as the natural scientist among architects. The Australian Pritzker Prize winner Glenn
Murcutt is more familiar with the Australian landscape, climate and vegetation than probably any
one else. Based on his deep fund of knowledge, he
designs buildings which respect the environment
and its often concealed patterns just as much as
the living habits and needs of the intended occupants. Francoise Fromonot presents a portrait of
the impassioned maverick and takes a look at three
of his building designs.
What direction are Europes towns and cities moving in, what are their plans for the future? Cia Rinne
and Joakim Eskildsen have taken a critical closeup look at urban development in Europe, travelling
to seven cities which could not be any more different: From Benidorm, Spains Mediterranean Manhattan to the former squatters colony Christiana
in Copenhagen, from the post-socialist brown coal
mining city of Grfenhainichen to a Roma settlement in Hungarian Hevesanyaros.
10
HANS NAMUTH / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / AGENTUR FOCUS
1
2
4
8
10
SPRING 2008
Issue 08
ContENTS
D&A SPRING 2008 Issue 08
now
Turning light
into art
The things that make architecture tick:

events, competitions and selected new developments from the world of daylighting.
When Viennas Ringstrae was lit

up on 8 October 2007 at 11 p.m., it
was no ordinary street light illuminating the city. As part of the MAK
Design Nite, the Museum of Applied
Art (MAK) was unveiling prototypes
of what has been named the Solar
Tree for the very first time. The solar
tree is a lighting feature designed by
British industrial designer Ross Lovegrove and produced in cooperation
with partner companies Sharp and
Artemide. Lovegroves designs frequently draw their inspiration from
forms occurring in nature. The solar
tree design embodies this nature-oriented approach, offering a new interpretation of the tree structure with
the aim of instilling a sense of nature
into the urban landscape. The Solar
Trees communicate more than light,
explains the designer, they commu-
nicate the trust of placing beautifully made, complex natural forms

outside for the benefit of all of society. They become a museum that is
folded inside out, the museum as an
incubator of change in society. The
5.5 metre high installation features
a total of 360 of solar cells mounted
on its branches and the lighting is
switched on and off automatically
by a sensor.
If the driving force behind the
implementation of this new urban
lighting project, MAK Director Peter
Noever, has his way, the solar trees
will be permanently installed in the
future in front of the MAK building
and the University of Applied Arts.
However, to date it is far from certain as to whether the City of Vienna
is ready to adopt such a radical new
direction as an alternative method of
street lighting. Lovegrove and his associates view the initial unveiling of
the temporary installation in Vienna
as the start of a global expansion of
their innovative urban lighting concept. And it looks as if they may be
right: since 19 November, the design
installations have been lighting up
the area in front of the Scala in Milan;
in January 2008, the prototype was
on view at the Parc des Expositions
in Paris; and this will be followed by
presentations in Tokyo, Los Angeles
and Miami.
Photo: Torben Eskerod
photo: Gerhard Koller/MAK
News from
another world
His trademarks are stuffed animals,

glistening light and surreal backdrops
of sound: The Norwegian installation
artist Brre Sthre immerses his audiences into a world suspended between mystery and space-age design
from which hardly anyone emerges
untouched. The effect of Sthres latest installation From someone who
nearly died but survived in Odense
in Denmark is no different: It depicts
planets on a collision course to the
accompaniment of the explosive
sounds of the big bang. A white horse
emerges into view in a mist-filled
glass case, and stuffed ravens stare
at visitors with illuminated eyes. In a

sound-deadened room, viewers experience being acoustically cut off from
the outside world. As they turn every
bend leading through the exhibition,
visitors are met by new and confusing
impressions on the senses which remain imprinted on the memory. Born
in 1967, Sthre links the symbols of
older cultures with motifs taken from
science fiction cult films to create a
total art work which may at times
be amusing, occasionally morbid but
always fascinating. The exhibition
From someone who nearly died but
survived was premiered in 2007 in
Bergen and is now on show until 25

May in the Kunsthalle Brandts (www.
brandts.dk) in Odense. For the curator team lead by Lene Burkard, one of
the motives for hosting the Sthre
exhibition was to demonstrate commitment to young Scandinavian art:
Over recent years, we have observed
the emergence of many good Scandinavian artists, but most of them go
abroad to exhibit. From someone
who nearly died but survived is the
first installation by the artist, who
now lives in both New York and Oslo,
to be exhibited in Denmark.
Professional daylight evaluation of

buildings and interior spaces is more
and more asked for. But it still takes a
degree of skill and not a little time to
generate the desired result.
An answer to this problem is now
at hand in the form of the VELUX
Daylight Visualizer, a simple intuitive daylight planning program designed by VELUX in cooperation with
the company Luxion. This allows simple room situations to be drawn on
the computer in just minutes. These
are then photorealistically rendered
and statistically evaluated. Daylight
animations can also be produced
showing the effect of sunlight in the
room throughout the day. As VELUX
is aiming to offer as many architects,
designers and students access to
professional daylight planning and
rendering as possible, its Daylight
Visualizer has been deliberately designed for maximum operating simplicity. The user first specifies the
basic room geometry, choosing the
roof shape, size and position of windows and doors, and internal room
surfaces. The next step involves determining the orientation and geographical location of the building, as
well as the sky conditions, date and
time for the simulation. The program
Sukkah in steel
uses this information to calculate the

daylight conditions in the room. This
can be depicted in the form of photorealistic images, for which both luminance and illuminance data can be
visualized in the form of false colour
and iso-contour images. In this way,
the program permits important key
variables such as the daylight factor to be calculated. The VELUX
Daylight Visualizer runs under the
Microsoft Windows XP operating
system and can be downloaded free
of charge from http://viz.velux.com.
The site includes a number of tutorials and examples on what the application can do.
Daniel Libeskind, architect of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, is renowned for

the symbolic character of his architecture. The existing museum building, opened in 2001, provided an
intriguing example of this symbolism
in pattern of its facade, whose lines
point towards locations relating to
Jewish culture in Berlin, and by its
inner courtyards know as the voids,
intended to embody the devastation
suffered at the hands of the Holocaust.
Libeskinds latest structure in Berlin,
the canopy covering the inner courtyard of the Jewish Museum, also echoes symbolic references. Supported
by four free-standing bundles of
steel pillars, their asymmetrical roof
branches were inspired by the concept of the Jewish sukkahs, the name
given to the temporary constructions
that sheltered the Jewish people returning from exile in Egypt and that
are remembered each year at Sukkot,
the Feast of Tabernacles.
The glass courtyard is enclosed
on three sides by the original museum building constructed in 1735
by Philipp Gerlach. The four supporting bundles cover a surface area of
670 square metres and are 13 metres in height. Plans exist to use the
courtyard from now on as an events
Glass wave
area for gatherings of up to 500 people. The ground floor now also houses
new technology and storage rooms.
Using a total of 340 tons of steel, the
white supporting and roof structure
is solid rather than filigree in design,
and indeed Libeskinds architecture
is known for assigning a secondary
role to factors of efficiency and economical use of materials. But still, museum director W. Michael Blumenthal
is confident that Berlin has become
the richer by the addition of this architectural attraction, which is certain
to draw Berlin residents as well as
tourists. The fascination of the glass
courtyard is its complexity and the
intriguing way in which it uses light.
This is influenced to a large degree
by the courtyards facade, a concertina-style construction made of glass
encompassing no fewer than nine different panel formats. And to satisfy
the demands of conservationists,
who had called for the greatest possible degree of transparency for the
glass courtyard, an extremely clear
type of white glass was selected with
an internal coating to provide protection from the sun. This has created a
space flooded by light with a varying
pattern of reflections and shading depending on weather conditions.
Olafur Eliasson: Your strange certainty still kept, 1996. The Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens 2008 Olafur Eliasson
Photo: Nigel Young / Foster and Partners
Photo: Jens Ziehe Jewish Museum Berlin
Rendering: VELUX A/S
New daylight
planning tool
For some weeks now, Sir Norman

Fosters graceful glass canopy over
the inner courtyard of Washingtons
Smithsonian Institute has added a
new dimension to the art and cultural
scene of the city. The inner courtyard
links the American Art Museum with
the National Portrait Gallery, which
is accommodated in various wings
of the erstwhile Patent Office. The
building itself is among one of the
USAs most significant examples of
neoclassical Greek revival architecture, and consequently architects
Foster and Partners and engineers
Buro Happold were under a strict
mandate to leave the existing building substance unscathed.
The undulating steel and glass
construction is mounted on eight
aluminium-clad supporting pillars
along the sides of the courtyard. Only
a thin seam links the new roof with
the historic building, lending the illusion that the lightweight glass structure is hovering above the stone of
the building facade. The wave-like
structure of the canopy was the response conceived by the architects
to the height offset between the existing building volumes. The outside
edge of the glass canopy curves almost imperceptibly upwards to form
Olafur Eliasson
in the MoMA
a gutter. The rainwater is drained

away via the eight supporting pillars.
Each of the 862 glass panes is individually shaped and provided with its
own integral sun guard. Seen from directly underneath, the steel and glass
structure appears completely level.
It is only from an inclined perspective that the wave shape becomes evident. In sunshine, the shadows cast
by the steel latticework play on the
facades of the historic building, while
on dull days the greyness of the sky
is made to appear remote.
By roofing over the inner courtyard, an indoor public space of around
2,600 square metres was created between the two museums, which can
now be used throughout the year irrespective of weather conditions for
concerts, lectures or other cultural
events. An ingenious sound and light
system accommodated in plain pillars long the edges of the building creates the required atmosphere. The
inner courtyard was designed in cooperation with landscape architect
Kathryn Gustafson. High ficus trees
in giant flower pots made of marble
and a water basin make this a cheerful and serene public space.
He uses ice crystals and wafts of

mist, glass mirrors and metal gratings, candles and the sun itself as
tools to communicate light as a phenomenon of nature. His sources of
inspiration vary from mathematical formulae to the moss that grows
on the highlands of Iceland. And he
has become established as a soughtafter partner and associate for architects. This is Olafur Eliasson, the
multi-talented light and installation
artist from Copenhagen, born in 1967.
For the second time since 2001, he
is being afforded an honour reserved
to only the most revered names from
the world of contemporary art. Until
30 June, the New York Museum of
Modern Art is dedicating a special
exhibition to Eliassons work. Part
of the exhibition will be held in the
MoMA itself, and part of it in the
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in
New York. In total there will be 34
works on show reflecting the variety of Eliassons artistic output since
1991. The exhibits will include photographs, light and mirror objects and
the Moss Wall dating back to 1994,
an installation made of living reindeer moss which visitors to the exhibition in the halls of the MoMA can
watch growing or depending on
how it is tended, drying out. Added

to this are six brand new works commissioned specially for the exhibition: the installation Take Your Time,
which has lent its name to the exhibition and which comprises a large
spherical mirror on the ceiling of the
room that is set in rotation to create
an irritant room experience for the
observer. The natural light setup is
a light box that simulates the natural spectrum of sunlight by artificial
means. In Mirror door, on show in
four variations, Eliasson combines
spotlights and mirrored doors to create moving light spots on the floor of
the gallery.
The Take Your Time exhibition
is due to move on to pastures new
in the autumn; initially to the Dallas
Museum of Art and later to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. The summer of 2008 will also
see Olafur Eliasson present his New
York City Waterfalls, a temporary
art project staged in public spaces
that will entail setting up artificial
waterfalls at four waterfront locations in New York. For more information, go to www.nycwaterfalls.org
Michael Mehaffy is an urban planning consultant, author, educator, and research associate with Christopher Alexanders Centre for Environmental Structure Europe. He is Chair of the USA
chapter of the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism, an NGO working to preserve and build
on local patterns around the world. He lectures, publishes and
teaches internationally.
Patterns of city life

It has been just over thirty years now since
Christopher Alexander and his team published A Pattern Language, the best-selling
architectural book that set off unexpected
waves in other fields notably computer
science, where useful by-products include
Wikipedia, The Sims and other familiar
software. In so doing, it proved its functionalist merit and surprised some sceptics who
objected to its apparently traditional
aesthetic surface. But underneath was a
transcendent functionalism that aimed at
capturing a deeper architecture of objects
in process and their recurring spatial
relationships. Its aesthetics was not just
expressive material for art but the emergent result of deeper structural processes
including social ones.
The theory of patterns holds that
configurations in our environments (or in our
software) often repeat under similar
circumstances, and that it is possible to
map these repeating patterns into a relational system of overlapping groups. In this
way the linear combinations of the elements
of design can be developed into more tightly
interlinked networks of wholes. Using such
a language, designers can build up rich
poetic connections between things, just as
natural languages can move beyond mere
recitations of facts into the complexities of
PHOTO: Travelpix Ltd / The Image Bank / Getty Images
DISCOUrse
BY
MICHAEL
MEHAFFY
D&A spring 2008Issue 08
poetry. So, too, it now appears, traditional

builders used something like this kind of
language to make the surprisingly complex
structures we all admire in historic cities
and towns.
This turns out to be a handy fact for
todays urbanists. Critics (and even some
prominent architects) increasingly bemoan
the failure of todays fragmented projects to
form coherent wholes at the scale of
urbanism. But it is becoming clear that
sustainable cities will require just this kind
of integrated urbanism affording us the
ability to move efficiently between daily
activities, to find interest and pleasure in a
walkable streetscape, to participate in
shaping an evolving, liveable neighbourhood
that is responsive to our needs and our
actions.
While a number of investigators continue to develop the fertile topic of patterns,
Alexander and colleagues are now exploring
the ways living processes use coded sequences to evolve and differentiate adaptive form. We want to know how we can
use these insights to make a more adaptive,
more sustainable kind of technology one
that has the ecological qualities of living
systems. We hope such crossover work may
again point the way to surprising new
possibilities.
Mankind
and architecture
Mankind as the focal point of architecture:

interior views of a corresponding relationship.
Green Urbanism:
Yesterday, Today
and Tomorrow
The fate of our planet will most likely be decided in

the cities. Only if they become sustainable, will we
manage to provide decent living conditions to all
mankind. Green Urbanism, as it is often dubbed,
certainly has a future. To assert itself, however, it will
have to overcome many of the planning and consumption patterns that have come into existence since the
beginning of industrialisation.
The earliest records of cities, dating back some 8,000

years, show that the building of cities paralleled the development of writing. There seemed to be two major functions
to this writing:
1. To codify the regulations governing the city, i.e.
town planning
2. To lay down the stories, told for millennia, about their reason for existing, where they have come from and how they
face the future, i.e. urban spirituality.
The fact that town planning and urban spirituality have a
long history should not surprise us. Some reflection on their
significance can provide us with a framework for how we
should now face our future in cities that contain more than
half the human race and which now require a new kind of
green urbanism.
Photo: akg-images/Erich Lessing
Why is town planning important?

Cities are about commerce and opportunity. Through food
surpluses they provide us with the division of labour that can
enable many more economic and cultural activities than in a
hunter-gatherer society. These activities have always needed
to be ordered within a common rational framework without
them, commercial and human activities cannot work.
Homo sapiens existed for around 3 million years as a huntergatherer before discovering that their knowledge of seeds and
animal husbandry could allow them to settle and produce significantly more food in the one place. With their new-found skills
and the ensuing cooperative division of labour, humans became
more functional and towns grew from such settlements.
But with many people living together, the new knowledge
of urban opportunity faced immediate challenges:
How to ensure water and food were distributed evenly
How to remove waste so that it did not pollute the water
and it helped to grow the food
How to provide housing for all
How to ensure people were safe and secure
How to build streets and public spaces so that everyone
could access the city and meet together
How to tax and govern once the scale of a city has grown
beyond families and groups where everyone is known.
10
Left Right up to the present

day, the Tower of Babel (shown
here in the painting by Pieter
Brueghel d. ., 1563) is a symbol of human delusions of grandeur and feasibility. There is a
lot to say in favour of the theory
that Babylons fall in the ancient
world was also due to the excessive use of natural resources.
By Tim Beatley and Peter Newman
These are the issues of town planning which existed then and
still stretch us in every fibre of our urban existence. In the end
they require a set of regulations that we all agree on as forming the basis for our common good.
Today we must add a new issue: how do we reduce the
consumption of resources and subsequent ecological footprint
whilst improving the quality of life? This is the fundamental
question of urban sustainability and whilst it needs to find its
way into all elements of town planning regulations, it is also
fundamentally a question of urban spirituality.
Why is urban spirituality important?
In order to create order and co-operation, human beings have
always found a higher order of explanation. Thus the earliest
writing not only codified the regulations for how we should
live our lives in cities but also provided some of the whys and
wherefores.
The oldest texts of the Bible, common to Jew, Christian
and Muslim, tell of a world being created from chaos into a
beautiful natural order. Human beings lived within this natural order and tended the garden as hunter-gatherers did (and
to a vanishing amount still do). Then, as the story goes, despite
being warned, they chose to eat of the knowledge of the tree
of good and evil and were banished from the garden forever,
to till the earth and build cities.
The story reflects the transition to cities that human beings
chose to make to follow the opportunities and new knowledge that come from urban existence and that we continue
to choose today. Nobody returns to the existence of the huntergatherer. However, the endless stories of the ancient texts all
show that humans in cities must not only take advantage of
the new opportunities, they must contribute to the life and
functioning of the city.
The earliest writings about cities show that this new existence could not be presumed. The ancient city of Babylon was
castigated by the prophets because it not only enslaved people
but it destroyed the surrounding trees. Its end came as the silting of the Euphrates River ruined its agricultural base. Ephesus was the last major European city to be abandoned (in 1000
AD) when its port silted up due for similar reasons.
Thus choices must be made in our cities and their conse-
D&A SPRING 2008Issue 08
11
Was the downfall of New Orleans in 2005 a direct consequence of global warming?
Doubt still exists, but the parallels between climatic change and
increasing damage due to storms
is undisputed.
Bottom Highways in Los
Angeles. Up to the age of 25,
the average US citizen has
spent altogether one year of
his life sitting in a car.
Opposite Allotments in the city

(here in Dortmund) became popular in the 20th Century particularly as recreational places in the
countryside. They will become
more important in the future for
sustainable urban development,
because they help to guarantee
the local supply of fruit and vegetables.
Photo: Avenue Images/Index Stock/ Mitch Diamond
The Challenge of Green Urbanism

While modern cities in the developed world are healthier and
more desirable places to live than counterparts a century or
two ago, there are still serious challenges to confront. Modern
cities require an extensive flow of resources and exert a tremendous impact on planetary ecosystems. The City of New York
alone requires more than 1 billion gallons of water a day. Its
electricity consumption is immense, amounting to more than
50 million megawatt hours per year currently and expected
to rise to 72 million by 2030. In turn, New York City emits
almost 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, a quantity
larger than some nations. That said, cities offer the most hope
12
D&A Spring 2008Issue 08
Photo: Cornelius Paas/Das Fotoarchiv
Photo: Panos Pictures/VISUM
quences accepted. The ancient texts show a constant battle

as some cities learned to live and thrive within their constraints, while some did not accept their constraints, did not
adapt their behaviour, and simply collapsed. In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond has documented examples of both these
processes.
The future of cities today involves similar choices. The
planet cannot continue to absorb the greenhouse gases emitted primarily from our cities. The climate will destroy our cities, just as it swept over New Orleans, if we do not adapt to a
new common good established as a global system. Even sooner,
we face the peaking in world oil production and the reality
that we cannot continue to build cities that require more and
more car travel, to reach houses that require more and more
goods to be stored in them.
The first signs of how we can adapt our cities to be more
sustainable are appearing. We know enough from the demonstrations of green buildings and green suburbs that it is possible to live with a fraction of the resource consumption we
have been used to, and that the urban experience is healthier, with more daylight and less pollution. But we can also see
that the urban hubris which sees little need to change is universally evident. Some cities are likely to decline rapidly as
they refuse to acknowledge the new constraints. Hopefully,
enough cities will move quickly so that we can continue the
ancient experience and create new town planning regulations
and new urban spirituality stories about the transition to sustainability.
13
Photo: artvertise
Greenness in the city is good for

the microclimate and for the
image. The US real estate investor Donald Trump already recognized this in 1983. The Trump
Tower in New York was an early
forerunner of green multi-story
buildings, which became the
sensation from the mid 90s
onwards.
14
for accommodating population growth and advancing quality of life, while advancing (perhaps achieving?) sustainability and protecting planetary health.
As British writer and activist Herbert Girardet rightly
asserts, there will be no sustainable future without sustainable cities. The prospects of a sustainable life in the city can
already be seen in the efficiency and performance of cities like
New York. While per capita carbon dioxide emissions for residents of the US are more than 24 metric tons, an average New
York City resident emits only about 7. Even more ecologically
efficient and sustainable levels of living can be seen in European cities, but the point is that compact and dense urban
environments that permit and allow walking, bicycling, and
public transit, for instance, are important antidotes to profligate, wasteful and ultimately unsustainable global patterns
of development and resource use.
The good news is that cities have emerged as important
players in the sustainability movement in themselves. There is
now much interest in sustainable cities, to the extent that there
is even good-natured competition to see which city can be the
greenest. In the U.S., more than 600 local governments have
now signed the Mayors Climate Action Agreement, committing them to meeting or exceeding the Kyoto targets. And the
nations largest cities are now leading the way and showing tremendous leadership, laying out ambitious green goals. Mayor
Richard Daley of Chicago has famously declared that his city
will be the greenest in the nation. And in the spring of 2007,
Mayor Michael Bloomberg released an ambitious green plan
for New York City, declaring the intention to make that city
the first ecologically sustainable city of the 21st Century.
Green Urbanism in its fullest meaning refers to those ways
in which the agendas of cities and urbanism, and those of environment and conservation and sustainability, can and do profoundly overlap. It certainly includes much of the following:
building and growing more densely and compactly; creating walkable mixed use urban environments that permit and
encourage walking and bicycling; investments in public transit; creating closed-loop urban metabolism and local production of goods and materials (food, building, materials); and
investment in and commitment to sustainable and renewable
energy technologies integrated into the built form (e.g. solar,
wind, biomass) as well as solar design that uses all the best of
modern materials like steel and glass to enable daylight to fill
our buildings, instead of needing artificial light and heat..
Nevertheless, cities will continue to exert serious material
and resource demands on the planet and how to shift this in
more sustainable directions will be a major challenge.
Understanding in a more systematic way the nature and
magnitude of the resource flows required of a city is a first
step, and more cities and regions will need to do this. London is an example of one city that has. The study City Limits:
A Resource Flow and Ecological Footprint Analysis of Great London, completed in 2002, yields a comprehensive picture of the
flows and resource demands of this metro region of about 8
million. Among its key findings: Londoners consume 154,400
GW of energy yearly, producing 41 million tons of CO2; Londoners require almost 50 million tons of materials (including
building materials and food) and generate 26 million tons of
waste. Overall, the ecological footprint associated with these
resource demands is almost 300 times the land area of greater
London. Most of its critical inputs, such as food and energy,
are imported and derived from unsustainable, non-renewable sources.
This material flow analysis has shaped planning and policy in the region to a considerable degree. The so-called London Plan, for instance, contains a section entitled Londons
Metabolism: using and managing natural resources. In this
cross-cutting policies section, such topics as household waste
recycling and composting targets are set, as well as targets
for reuse of construction and demolition waste (most construction aggregate needed for London, comes from outside
the city, so opportunities for reuse are especially promising),
improving air quality, and water supply and reuse. Londons
energy plan and, most recently, its Climate Change Action
Plan, set ambitious targets for generating energy from local
and regional renewable sources and for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Under the Energy Plan, by 2009 each of
the Citys 34 boroughs should be home to at least one zeroenergy development (like BedZED), boroughs should identify
sites for renewable energy production, and the city should, by
2010, produce 665 GWh of energy from some 40,000 renewable energy schemes. A new regional food strategy similarly
15
Above Solar cells (shown here on

a roof in Chicago) are amongst
the most important mainstays
for a decentralized supply of
renewable energy in the future.
One square meter of solar cells
helps to save approximately 100
litres of oil per year.
Below Building towers in Dubai:

The metropolis in the Persian
Gulf currently has more than 200
multi-storied buildings which are
over 100 meters in height. The
term sustainability has only just
begun to take effect very gradually in the town planning of the
region and when it does then
mostly in individual cases and for
image reasons.
Photo: Tim Beatley
sets up more local production and processing (shortening supply lines) and from more sustainable means.
Finding the elements of a sustainable material system for
cities around the world will be a challenge. It will begin with
a better and more systematic understanding of the inputs and
outputs, something similar to what London has undertaken.
Beyond that, a sustainable urban metabolism will require a
localising of material sources (for instance, growing much of
the food a city needs closer to home). It will also require the
city to become carbon-neutral and energy balanced, producing
from renewable technologies integrated into the built form, at
least as much energy as residents need. And more power should
come from solar and other renewable sources to carry out the
clean-up and restoration needed in many of these cities.
And a more concerted effort will be necessary to forge
systems of exchange and market relationships that at once
profoundly reduce the environmental impacts of urban consumption and provide a fair and equitable return to producers wherever they are. Globalised trade will be replaced by fair
trade as urban consumers acknowledge more accountability
for the impacts of their urban consumption. Unfettered and
unquestioned globalism or globalisation, by which capital seeks
the least expensive inputs and labour, regardless of ecological
impacts or working conditions, will be replaced by a kind of
glocalism that seeks both to shorten urban supply lines and
to bring about environmental stewardship and human development in sources, regions and countries.
16
Photo: Emily / fotolia.com
Designing Cities for Resilience

However, the path to a sustainable, solar future will mean a
bumpy ride, however. Cities will face more uncertainties and
calamities and potential shocks of many kinds in the decades
to come and will need to be profoundly more resilient than
they currently are. Even if global emissions of greenhouse gases
are substantially and swiftly curtailed, the effects of climate
change will manifest themselves and be especially severe for
cities. These impacts range from heat waves and drought to
extreme storms and rise in sea level.
Few cities have faced up to the global decline in oil production and supply (peak oil) that makes even more pressing
the need to reduce carbon in our cities. Those cities that are
less sprawling, have more extensive and better developed transit systems and have nurtured local and regional food production, will have an easier time adapting to a world of diminished
oil supply, and will also be more able to create a healthier and
more positive quality of life for residents.
Cities will increasingly need to be designed and managed
for resilience; both resilience in the face of physical (but predictable and expectable) hazards and natural forces, such as
earthquakes and flooding, and the new economic and resource
shocks that are now just as predictable. But we remain mostly
in denial about their imminent impact.
Green cities of the future will need to re-commit to being
cities of people first, cars second as Jan Gehl has shown in
Copenhagen, Melbourne and now New York with his programmes to reclaim the city for the pedestrian. Reducing
commitment to the private automobile will make cities more
resilient in the face of declining oil and open up opportunities
for more space for nature to re-assert itself. Restoring urban
forests and nature help to reduce cooling and other energy
demands further enhancing the energy resilience of a city.
And especially true in the cities of the South, investments in
urban greening, whether community gardens and city farms,
community solar production, or water and energy conservation, have the potential to lighten the burden of poverty and
enhance the quality of living for all.
Cities have historically been seen as the antithesis of nature,
intrinsically unnatural and destructive. A major challenge will
be in imagining new cities, and new city forms, that acknowledge the intrinsic, innate need for humans to have direct contact with nature and with the other forms of life with which we
share the planet what E. O. Wilson has called biophilia.
There are a host of creative tools and strategies that could
be employed to help re-earth urban populations. All future
building must be green, also in the sense that nature becomes
a central part of the urban design programme. Many examples
exist now, from the airport terminal in Jakarta, which incorporates a rain forest in its centre, to the green rooftop on Chicagos city hall (which has set in motion a renaissance of green
rooftops, numbering now more than 250 in the city). Many
cities have committed to ambitious targets for tree-planting
Los Angeles and New York City have each declared an inten-
tion of planting a million new trees in each of these cities.

Efforts are underway in some cities to daylight streams running through urban neighbourhoods, restoring the rhythms
and sounds of water, and to restore urban hydrologies and
watersheds. For many years, Zurich has had a programme
for bringing urban streams back to the surface, and cities as
diverse as Cape Town, Sydney and San Francisco have made
rediscovering their waterfronts and riverfronts and reconnecting to them a high priority.
Cities offer the hope and potential to bring us together, to
civilize us, to provide immense cultural value; but they must
also afford the chance to experience wildness, and this is perhaps no easy task.
One of the boldest moves at re-earthing can be seen in
Seoul, South Korea, where the Cheonggyecheon river has
been restored and returned to the surface, dismantling an
elevated freeway in the process, and giving residents of downtown a new green amenity. In turn, the Cheonggyyecheon
has served as a catalyst for other impressive green projects in
the city, including its newly opened Seoul Forest, a park that
has included the planting of 400,000 trees. Economic analyses of such projects demonstrate the merits of such green city
efforts, even using narrow economic criteria. And leaders in
cities like Chicago and London recognise that global competitiveness will require urban sustainability and green urbanism. Diminishing resources (such as oil), the need to tackle
climate change and resource depletion, and the challenge of
enhancing quality of life and direct contact with nature, all
argue for a new paradigm of global urbanism.
Tim Beatley is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities,

School of Architecture, University of Virginia Charlottesville.
Peter Newman is the Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University in Perth,
Australia, and Harry W Porter Visiting Professor in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Virginia Charlottesville.
Tim and Peter are writing a new book together Cities of Fear and Hope: Urban
Resilience, Peak Oil and Climate Change for Island Press.
17
patterns
Urban planning and urban reality:

A journey through Europe in seven stages.
7 europe
04 Milton Keynes
04 Milton Keynes
Photography by Joakim Eskildsen /

www.joakimeskildsen.com
Introductions and questions by Jakob Schoof
Answers by Cia Rinne
What role models do Europes cities offer?

How do they plan for their own future?
What does the term sustainability mean
for them?
20
D&ASPRING 2008Issue 08
This article focuses mainly on invisible things.

Or, at least, on things that are not immediately apparent at first glance. For sustainable urban development is not just a matter of
solar panels, fuel cells and better insulation.
It is above all a matter of a greater density of
buildings, of concepts for transportation and
supply, of ownership structures and political
decision making. As the American architect
Douglas Farr wrote, It is no longer acceptable to build a high [energy] performance
building in a greenfield, automobile-dependent context and have it certified as green.1
He continues, The time for half measures
has passed. [These sustainability achievements] are optimising the components of a
dead-end, automobile-dependent or resource
squandering pattern of development. []2.
The cities of our time show why the term
holistic is more than just a vogue expression.
Persons wishing to comprehend and even
plan cities must be able to deal with complexity. Since about two years ago, more people in
the world live in an urban environment than in
rural areas. But urbanisation is not a new phenomenon. In Great Britain, the urban population had outstripped the rural population by
1851, and in most other European countries
this had taken place by 1900 at the latest.
Europe thus has long had the opportunity of
testing sustainability strategies in its cities.
In fact, it might be thought that the cities
have a duty to be advisors and role models for sustainable urbanisation to formerly
developing countries. However, one should be

sceptical about whether they would be capable of performing such a knowledge transfer and whether the recipients of their
well meant counsel would even want to hear
them. It seems instead to be the case that
every country is destined to undergo at different periods in time the same experiences
with industrialisation and urbanisation. Thus,
the German urban planner Jrgen Frauenfeld commented, Shanghai has undergone
explosive growth in the last decade. Now
the euphoria has evaporated and the city is
attempting to cope with the ecological and
social consequences of this growth.
Can European cities still offer a role model
and were they, indeed, ever role models? Are
they even a model at all or is that merely a
chimera? We will be asking seven questions
of seven European cities which could not be
more different. Our choice ranges from Benidorm, the Spanish Manhattan on the Mediterranean, to the former squatters colony
Christiania in Copenhagen and from the carfriendly new town Milton Keynes to the
post-socialist, post-industrial Grfenhainichen, which is currently reinventing itself as
a city with new energy. What is it that distinguishes these cities from one another, what
unites them? What was the original purpose
of founding these cities, what are the visions
for the future which now spur them on?
What all seven cities have in common
is that they were only founded in the sec-
ond half of the 20th century. Or they experienced momentous upheavals during this
period which had a decisive impact on their
cityscape. They are all, therefore, relatively
young cities. Nevertheless, newer developments are already beginning to be superimposed over the initial historical layers and
paradigm shifts in planning are starting to
show results: thus, car-friendly Milton Keynes is currently attempting a redensification
of its expansive layout. And Almere, a city
on a polder designed from scratch, has now,
with the help of internationally acclaimed
architects, given itself an urban centre.
Christiania, for decades a state within a
state that recognised no private ownership
of land, is currently under pressure from
politicians and in their wake from real
estate investors. They have cast a covetous eye on this green oasis located in one
of the most expensive residential areas in
Europe. The question as to where all these
developments will go remains exciting.
1. Douglas Farr: Sustainable Urbanism,

John Wiley & Sons 2007, p. 41
2. Ibid., p. 41
21
04 Milton Keynes
City visions yesterday and today

Cities do not develop by chance. Their foundation is always a volitional and purposive act.
For medieval townspeople their town was not
merely an amalgam of buildings, streets and
squares but also a piece of parchment: the town
charter. In the town charter, the sovereign confirmed the special privileges accorded a settlement and the privileges formed the basis for the
economic and social development of individuals.
Our image of what city is a medium for culture
can thus be directly traced back to medieval
towns and their burghers.
Medieval cities defined themselves primarily through their fortified boundaries: here is
the town, there is the surrounding countryside.
Today, the contrast between town and country has almost disappeared. Everywhere is
the city: We still conceive of cities as discrete
objects, separate from their surroundings.
Thats no longer true. There is no exterior to the
global city that connects and sustains us all. 3
This situation demands new visions from those
who would found new cities. The most compelling visions (even if they may not always be the
most convincing ones) can be divided into two
groups: those that flatly reject the concept of
an unbounded city and those that resolutely
implement the concept. With its regular network of thoroughfares, Milton Keynes, for example, bears all the hallmarks of a planned urban
sprawl. Theoretically there are no limits to the
expansion of the system. 40 years after its foundation, the new town of Milton Keynes is more
popular with its residents than ever: they appreciate the fact that the town does not prioritise
automobiles but has also left room for cyclists
and pedestrians. And they enjoy the contacts
between neighbours within clearly delimited
neighbourhoods that are completely accessible on foot.
It is not least economic factors that determine the acceptability of urban visions. For decades, Benidorm, for example, has embraced the
laws of the free market. Its aim of making the
greatest profit out of every metre of coastline is
manifest in the extension of buildings and of the
town skywards. The skyline created in this man-
22
04 Milton Keynes
ner has become one of Benidorms most characteristic features and is one of the instruments of
its city marketing. The erstwhile fishing villages
dream of prosperity through tourism has come
to fruition. Benidorms success has attracted
imitators who are gradually expanding the
urban sprawl into the hinterland of the town
with the creation of new urban settlements and
holiday villages. Christiania is a complete contrast: for years the population of this free state
was limited to around 850 people; new buildings were strictly prohibited. This was mainly
for political and ecological reasons, but was also
rooted in the self-organisation concept of the
settlement: property held in common and grass
roots democracy require complicated decisionmaking processes, which can only be managed
with a limited and committed population.
Citizens come to power:
The participative city
That the inhabitants of a city should be actively
involved in decisions on the citys future is not as
self-evident as it may appear to us today. Most
urban utopias show little consideration for individuals and their wish for co-determination. As
Ruth Eaton wrote in her book The Ideal City,
in the designs of creators of utopias the collective must at all events always take priority. []
Diversity of opinion and tolerance, which constitute the essence of a democracy, are foreign
to many utopian societies.4
So it comes as no surprise that many of
the utopian urban visions have never moved off
the drawing board. Many of them are based on
the total control of living conditions by a central authority. As the Swiss urban planner Carl
Fingerhuth commented dryly, It is hubristic of
modern man to believe that cities can be comprehensively controlled. While it was possible
to put a man on the moon, cities have always
managed to evade control. 5
Fingerhuth offers the picture of an itinerant swarm of bees, which decides on a new location without any contribution by its queen and
only by virtue of its collective intelligence. It
is not a linear process; it is based on the com-
plex collaboration of many bees, whose respective enthusiasm for a particular location allows
various factors to be weighed up against each
other. 6 The parallels to contemporary cities are
obvious: Sustainable cities need active involvement of the people; they need active citizens [...]
Local government needs to be more than modernized; it needs to be transformed into a vibrant
dynamic and challenging forum of debate. 7
In Europe, the Local Agenda 21 was a case
in point on just how difficult it can be to translate
plans into action. The Agenda was an attempt to
take the sustainability goals of the UN summit
in Rio de Janeiro 1992 and implement them at
a local level. But it was rare for a popular movement to ensue at local levels. It became clear
that the majority of people were simply not prepared to be actively involved in sustainability.
Many cities drew the following lessons
from this experience: sustainability must comply with the laws of the market. It must be able
to sell itself, must be capable of being passively
consumed by individuals and require very little
involvement or dedication. Financial incentives
are usually much more effective than appeals to
peoples ecological consciousness.
To whom does a city belong?
Imagine a city where there are no properly certified property rights. Is that unimaginable? But
that is the order of the day in most metropolises
in developing countries:
The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto
has calculated that 92 percent of the population in Egypt and 80 percent of all Mexicans do
not hold a legal title to any property. He added:
Nobodys ever washed a rented car. [...] So, yes,
the moment you own something you care more
for it. But Im also saying that, beyond ownership,
being within a comprehensive property system
makes possible a series of things that were not
possible before. [...] Macroeconomics is simply
unsustainable over time unless you also have
the micro: property networks and capital-creating systems that underpin it and make even
the poorest participate in the social contract
that it rests on. 8
De Sotos hymn to private property does not

mean that common property would be superfluous. But it does need efficient management
and a clear assignment of competences. Otherwise it will be menaced by what the microbiologist Garrett Hardin described in 1968 as the
Tragedy of the Commons: if a property held in
common is used more extensively than would
allow it to regenerate itself over the same period,
this will result in a gradual degradation and even
complete collapse. The problem is: in order to
maintain the viability of common land, all users
must be prepared to limit their claims on the
common good. If an individual refuses to do so
he will profit in the short term and the community will bear the costs in the longer term. Thus
the willingness to scale back individual interests
is correspondingly low when the issue affects
goods held in common.
Living in the city with whom?
Cities attract settlers and retain residents
because they offer opportunities for employment,
for meeting and being with people, for becoming
someone different. As migrants to every slum will
affirm, they are there because they want to be,
the environmentalist Kai N. Lee wrote. 9
Cities create a unique combination of
extremes: anonymity and propinquity, a division
of labour and cohesion, a market society and a
civic society, individuality and close social cooperation.10 They can and do unite a wide range
of lifestyles, religious persuasions and social
classes. This is what distinguishes them from
village communities, where everybody knows
each other, the most important needs can be
satisfied within the village itself, and the village
square is the place where consensus and cooperation are negotiated. 11
This capacity for integration is increasingly being put to the test in growing metropolises and may even collapse completely in
some areas. Despite being dependent on one
another, many wish to have nothing to do with
each other: while elites need people willing to
work for low wages, they do not want them living nearby. 12
While the public authorities talk almost unanimously of a socially balanced mix as a requirement of neighbourhood planning, real estate
investors prefer to speak of exclusiveness. Luxury yields profits; the affluent classes of society
are courted by the private sector. The state and
its social security net are expected to look after
all the rest. But the German futurologist Horst
W. Opaschowski increasingly sees obligations
for private investors if only out of self-interest:
The property sector and housing companies will
in future also have to offer social management
[...] Such social housing management will act as a
social glue and include such things as care for the
elderly, debt counselling for rent arrears, occupational projects, mutual aid associations, local
exchange trading schemes, and the like. [...] In an
age of shareholder value, social housing management may also offer economic benefits: [...] profitability through social responsibility! 13
Quality needs community
Can quality of living be measured quantitatively? The company Mercer Human Resource
Consulting certainly believes it can. It publishes
an annual league table of cities with the highest
(and lowest) quality of living. Their criteria range
from the crime rate and the amount of personal
freedom to educational institutions and cultural
activities; they include public transport, public
access to green spaces and, of course, the range
of facilities available in neighbourhoods.
Particularly in socially disadvantaged areas,
the importance of social and cultural activities
in addition to a functioning infrastructure has
been demonstrated: in the 1990s, Rio de Janeiro
began extensively redeveloping many of its
slums. It quickly became clear that the people
living there required more than roads, electricity
and running water. A well designed kindergarten,
a culture centre with interesting programmes
and a pleasant park allowed even the inhabitants
of a favela to be proud of their neighbourhood.
Urban life depends in addition to a healthy
social mix on such public utilisations. Urban
space has always been a place for the community rather than the individual []. They provide
emotional attraction, embodying political and

cultural activities [...]. They link the past, present
and future, become reassuringly familiar to local
people and stimulating for visitors, Mary Mellor from Sustainable Cities Research Institute
in Newcastle wrote. 14
The sustainability question:
How much is enough?
Environmental and energy experts say that
every sustainable development must take three
criteria into consideration: efficiency, sufficiency
and consistency. Efficiency means obtaining an
equivalent result with fewer resources. Sufficiency means: how much growth is necessary?
When do I have enough of something to be able
to live? Consistency means the compatibility
of technologies and commodities with natural
cycles. This also covers, among other things, the
capacity of products to be recycled.
In our civilisation there is a long tradition
that the returns from improvements in efficiency
are more than compensated for by growth. We
live in houses whose insulation is continually
improving while the houses themselves become
ever bigger. We travel over longer and longer
distances in increasingly heavy cars that are
driven by ever more fuel-efficient engines. We
enjoy the exchange of data over the internet
and forget that the World Wide Web and its
infrastructure are already consuming as much
energy as global air traffic.
Douglas Farr has therefore postulated that
in future, energy consumption should no longer
be measured per square metre of floor space but
rather in residential buildings per occupant, in
office buildings per employee and in airports per
passenger. Only then would densely built up cities finally be accorded the respect they deserve:
closely built up settlements may indeed consume many more resources per square metre
than areas with single family detached houses;
however their consumption figures per inhabitant are demonstrably lower.
Inhabitants of densely populated areas drive
less and use less energy for heating. And, by the
by, they also live more healthily and are less likely
23
04 Milton Keynes
to be obese.15 On the other hand, in many areas of

the world living in densely populated areas is not
very popular. People want to live at ground level,
have direct access to green spaces and require
a high degree of privacy. These are all demands
that have, for many decades, spurred the growth
of residential estates with single family houses.
Fulfilling these demands even in densely populated cities is one of the most important challenges of future planning.
The addiction of people to their automobiles has proved to be the greatest barrier to
sustainability. The German futurologist Horst
Opaschowski described the motivations behind
the mobility of modern man as somewhere
between flight and locomotion. No matter
how comfortable the home and apartment, no
matter how pleasant the quality of life of the
neighbourhood and the attractiveness of the
city, the urge to get out and get away remains
as strong as before.16 On the other hand, in Central Europe around half of all car journeys are
shorter than five kilometres, one third of them
are even shorter than three kilometres. Most of
them could be easily carried out by bicycle. And
it would be quicker too: scientists have found
that for distances up to 4.6 kilometres the bicycle is the most time-saving alternative.
To wean people from their cars it will be
necessary to create bicycle lanes and footpaths
together with public transport networks. And:
they will need to be close meshed, well kept, inexpensive and safe. But will this in itself be enough?
Psychologically, relinquishing ones car [...] almost
amounts to an amputation of a persons feeling
of self worth, Horst Opaschowski wrote. The
process of cutting the cord is much too difficult
and painful to allow the close attachment to the
automobile to be abandoned. The importance of
automobiles for peoples mobility may, at best,
experience some qualification in future. But at
present, cars cannot be replaced yet [...] 17
A future for the cities
Around the year 2000, mankind experienced
the transition to a new era that went almost
completely unnoticed. For the first time, popula-
24
04 Milton Keynes
7 EUROPE
tion growth had slowed worldwide. This means:

the global population is growing increasingly
slowly and is expected to level off by the year
2100 at between 11 and 12 billion people.18 The
growth of cities is expected to move in the opposite direction: individual cities will continue to
grow, others will stagnate or shrink. This will
have consequences for city planning. According to the German city planner Philipp Oswalt,
the result will be a surplus of room, of buildings and premises that are no longer required.
Despite this progressive decrease in utilisation,
the shrinking cities will continue to expand, will
grow on their outskirts, thus doubly thinning
out: fewer activities will be carried out over
larger areas.19 Oswalt considers the planning
of shrinking cities to be essentially reactive
because, in contrast to growth periods, it has
no appreciable effect on important forces such
as deindustrialisation, demographic change or
even suburbanisation.
The Swiss city planner Carl Fingerhuth
compared this planning strategy with a game
of dominoes in contrast to traditional urban
development that resembles a puzzle: a puzzle is a tightly controlled experimental game.
There is only one correct solution, a predetermined picture. It is different in a game of dominoes: the picture is never finished; it can always
be resumed at any point by clever additions to
the whole.
This should be kept in mind when attempting the social and ecological remodelling of
our cities. In other words: we must all learn to
play dominoes. The adaptability of the city is
unquestioned. It is the adaptability of its citizens, decision-makers and urban policy within
that city that will be put to the test in the pursuit of sustainability. 20 Future sustainable redevelopment of cities will still have to draw on a
combination of education, investments in infrastructure, financial incentives and, sometimes,
rigid regulations. This will require as in a game
of dominoes a capacity to improvise. But urban
planning must finally also learn the lessons of
its own past. It is curious how perfunctorily and
even reluctantly the energy efficiency and the
patterns of use in buildings and settlements
have been analysed to date. For decades archi-
tects and planners have proposed hypotheses

and only very rarely verified them. Just imagine: if the natural sciences had proceeded in the
same way, today we would have neither artificial fertilisers nor the relativity theory nor
manned space travel.
01
02
Notes
3. Bruce Mau / Institute without Boundaries:
Massive Change. Phaidon Verlag 2004, p. 45
4. Ruth Eaton: Die ideale Stadt. Nicolaische
Verlagsbuchhandlung 2003, p. 17
5. Carl Fingerhuth: Learning from China.
Birkhuser Verlag 2004, p. 146
6. Ibid.
7. Bob Giddins et al. in: Future Forms and Design
for Sustainable Cities, Architectural Press
2005, p. 28
8. Hernando de Soto in: Bruce Mau and the Institute
without Boundaries: Massive Change.
Phaidon Verlag 2004, p. 41
9. Kai N. Lee in: State of the World 2007.
Worldwatch Institute 2007, p. 9
10. Dr.Matthias SchulzeBing: Soziale Stadt,
s. eundc.de/pdf/49002.pdf
11. Ibid.
2005, p. 22
13. Horst W. Opaschowski: Besser leben schner
wohnen? Bundeszentrale fr politische
Bildung, 2005, p. 67
2005, p. 15
15. Vgl. Douglas Farr, Sustainable Urbanism. p. 19
16. Opaschowski: Besser leben schner wohnen?
Bundeszentrale fr politische Bildung
2005, p. 112
17. Ibid., p. 119
18. Sergej P. Kapitza: Global Population Blow-Up
and After. Global Marshall Plan Initiative
2006, p. 144
19. Philipp Oswalt in: Schrumpfende Stdte, Band 2.
Hatje Cantz Verlag 2005, p. 12
20. Bob Giddins et al. in: Future Forms and Design for
Sustainable Cities, Architectural Press
2005, p. 29
03
04
05
06
07
Almere
Grfenhainichen
Hevesaranyos
Milton Keynes
Solar City, LINz
Benidorm
Christiania
25
01
ALMERE
NL
01 Almere
Facts
VISION:
What vision is the city founded
upon, and what does this vision
encompass?
Location
Founded
Start of construction
Site
Inhabitants
Population density
Planners
QuickBird DigitalGlobe; 2008; Distributed by Eurimage
Dirk Frieling, Teun Koolhaas, Sjef Scheek.

Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rotterdam
(Master Plan for the city centre, 1994)
Flevoland, NL
1984 (as an official municipality)
1975
130.5 km
181,960
1395 inhabitants/km2
523247N
53226E
P. 28/29 The new centre of Almere has not yet been completed.
A collage of spectacular architecture which shuns neither
unusual shapes and colours nor
unconventional materials has
been created.
26
P. 30 The function of some of

the high-rise buildings in the
new centre is somewhat opaque.
Along the Weerwater lake, luxurious residential blocks were
created and form an interesting contrast to the narrow brick
terraced houses only a stones
throw away.
P. 31 The town is consistently

divided into a business centre
and various residential areas.
Great importance is placed on
privacy. Many houses in the first
residential area built in Almere are now hidden behind tall
hedges.
Almere, Hollands largest community

planned entirely from the drawing
board, was founded in the seventies
on the Flevoland polder that had
newly been reclaimed from the
Zuiderzee. The city was planned first
and foremost to ease the pressure of
population overcrowding in Amsterdam and Utrecht. It was designed as
a spacious, polynuclear, sprawling
garden city as epitomised by Ebenezer Howard.
The city that evolved out of nothing became a bare canvas for experimentation by architects who saw the
project as a chance to test out their
ideas. There was no overall plan. The
city grew up step by step, following
frequently changing guiding principles. Initially, traditional Dutch residential districts with dykes grew up,
followed by suburbs that followed
the American model, envisaging a life
surrounded by nature but still close
to urban facilities. During the initial
years, the main aim was to make detached one-family homes affordable,
providing all residents with their own
access, garden and parking space in
a village-type atmosphere (or what
was considered to be such). With
growing affluence, house designs
later became more individual.
DEVELOPMENT:
Is the vision still alive? Who keeps
it alive, and how?
Over 30 years after its foundation,
Almere is still one of the most rapidly growing cities in Holland. When
a population threshold of 100,000
was reached in the nineties, a move
was launched to counteract the
negative image of Almere as a dormitory town and a suburb of Amsterdam, with plans to create a new
profile for the city through the construction of an urban centre. The
contest to come up with a master
plan for the city was won by the Rem
Koolhaas Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), which broke with
the existing tradition of low-rise residential sprawl to extend the centre
by a creating a business park at the
station and a number of spectacular high-rise buildings with shopping
malls, offices and apartments facing
the harbour. What had been horizontally arranged transport routes for
cars, bicycles and pedestrians were

now layered vertically one above the
other in the city centre: road traffic is
routed underneath a raised platform
reserved to pedestrians, and below
that are all the citys parking spaces.
Pedestrians only touch ground level
again as the raised platform gives
onto a large free space accommodating the new theatre located directly
alongside and over the water.
The new city centre may help
Almere rise above its satellite role. A
new urban development plan drawn
up in 2003 optimistically envisages a
population of 400,000 by 2030.
FUNDING/OWNERSHIP
Who owns the city, and how is it
financed?
Many of the new houses constructed
in Almere are owner occupied.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE:
Who lives here, who doesnt, and
what networks exist among the
residents?
Originally Almere was populated
by members of the middle classes
escaping from less desirable living
conditions in Amsterdam to an area
where owning their own home was
an affordable option. There are a
large number of double income families living here, and more recently the
new city has drawn its overwhelmingly young population, around one
third of which is of foreign origin,
from other regions of Holland. Despite this, the majority of the population is still largely oriented towards
Amsterdam, where they either work
or cultivate social contacts. Consequently Almere has been stigmatised
as something of a dormitory town
where there is not much else to do.
The first thing people do when they
move here is put up a fence and buy
a TV, says Connie Franssen, founder
of a website entitled Geheugen van
Almere (Almere memories), which
aims to counteract the citys lack
of history. They work elsewhere,
spend a lot of time sitting in traffic and when they come home, they
shut themselves in. But according
to a women who lives in the Filmwijk district, on the other hand, there
are a lot of residents who appreciate
the functionality of the city. I feel at
home here. Here you can get everything you need.
LIVING CONDITIONS:
How do the inhabitants live and
what determines their living conditions?
The individual districts, which grew
up at different times in different architectural styles, encompass a colourful mixture of different forms of
living. Alongside uniform rows of terraces there are individually designed
detached family homes, experimental residential blocks and futuristic
residential towers on the waters
edge, as well as plenty of green
spaces. But real urban living of the
type one might expect to encounter
in a town of this scale is missing. Despite its size, Almere is illustrative of
the uncomfortable fact that a simple
accumulation of buildings does not
create a city, is the fitting comment
of Rita Capezzuto. An even stranger
phenomenon is that this residential
sprawl that appears to stretch without common goal or plan over the laboriously reclaimed land, does not
even communicate a coherent suburban feel. But still the population
senses something akin to the stress
of living in a big city. It is a big city,
explains one woman who lives and
works in Almere, and it has the
same big city problems as Amsterdam, although on a smaller scale.
The traffic within the city is
largely separated, with passenger
cars, buses, pedestrians and cyclists each assigned their own tracks
or routes, and buses are given right
of way in the city. Due to the employment situation the city has around
three times more residents than it
has jobs the Almere community
has no alternative but to commute,
which clogs both the motorways and
the rail connection to Amsterdam to
the limits of its capacity in peak rushhour periods.
A sizeable concentration of people is only encountered in Almeres
shopping centre and pedestrian
zones, department stores and restaurant chains. Otherwise there is
very little pedestrian movement in
the city. Only sporadic passers-by
walking dogs or out with children are
seen in the parks or on the waterside.
Thats how it is here, explains one father out with his children in the playground, people sit at home or get
in their cars when they want to go
somewhere.
SUSTAINABILITY:
What can be said about the resource consciousness of the city
and about its environmental footprint?
Although one of the objectives of
the new structural plan for Almere drawn up in 2003 is to strive towards a greener infrastructure and
establish a waste recycling system,
to date the city has failed to produce
any landmark achievements in terms
of environmental policy. The sprawling structure of the city makes doing
without the car anything but easy
for the inhabitants. In contrast to
the cities located further north,
which border directly onto the sensitive landscape zones, Almere is surrounded by agricultural land, making
urban expansion less problematical
if only in geographical terms than
in other parts of the region.
FUTURE PROSPECTS:
What will happen to the city in the
future?
The plan is for Almere to expand
further, growing out to the west
across the water towards Amsterdam. However, if the present policy of urban sprawl is permitted to
continue, there is a real fear that
the building land will not be sufficient to accommodate the targeted
400,000 residents. At the same
time, the infrastructure will have to
be further developed and new jobs
created, as the intention is not only
to reduce Almeres suburban character but also relieve the existing regular congestion of transport routes
between Almere and Amsterdam.
Even if the planned road-building
program goes ahead, the soil properties and water supply situation of
Flevoland place grave doubts on the
sense of pursuing further building development on the reclaimed region.
At least ten per cent of the land area
needs to be reserved for fresh water
storage. The southern section of
Flevoland is also below sea level, resulting in damage both to plants and
building fabric due to high water levels during the winter months, while
water shortages during the summer
leave the surface water salty, causing road, dyke and building subsidence. The rising sea level anticipated
as a result of climate change will do
little to alleviate these problems.
27
01 ALMERE
28
29
01 ALMERE
30
01 ALMERE
31
02
Grfenhainichen
D
02 GRFENHAINICHEN
Facts
VISION:
What vision is the city founded upon, and what does
this vision encompass?
Location

Founded
Area
Population
Population density
Planners
ARGE Neue Energie, Dr. Harald Kegler, Jrg Janicke, Brigitte

Walther, Grfenhainichen, Germany (Stadt mit neuer Energie
(Town with new energy), urban development concept 2004)
near Wittenberg in Saxony Anhalt,

on the edge of the Dbener Heide
before 1254
41.63 km
7,948
191 inhabitants/km
514343N
122717E
P. 34 Grfenhainichen is one of
the so-called shrinking towns of
East Germany. Since the reunification, it has lost around one
third of its inhabitants and there
is a disproportionately large
number of older people in the
community.
32
P. 35 Even Dr. Jger, one of the

brains behind the urban development concept of ARGE Neue
Energie, said: It is all only a
start. Some single-family
houses have had solar collectors
installed which are mainly used
for heating water.
P. 36/37 Several concrete-slab

buildings in the centre of Grfenhainichen have already been torn
down. As part of the Stadtumbau Ost (urban conversion east)
program, the unpopular upper
floors of the concrete-slab buildings are having their innards
removed and taken away.
P. 38/39 The Golpa-Nord browncoal factory in Grfenhainichen

existed up to 1991 and used to
employ a considerable number of
the local inhabitants. Today, this
is the location of the Ferropolis,
which is simultaneously a mining museum and a place to hold
events.
Lignite mining meant that Grfenhainichen, originally a country town,

grew into a sizable industrial centre
in the GDR period. Old village structures were among the victims of the
growing coal industry: the inhabitants of the nearby village of Gremmin were summarily moved out in
1964 to make way for lignite extraction. Gremmin had disappeared completely by 1977, while multi-storey
slab-construction blocks went up
in the centre of Grfenhainichen to
house the large numbers of opencast
mineworkers. After the collapse of
communism and three decades of
raw coal output, the opencast mine
was closed and gradually flooded.
Now there is a lake called the Gremminer See on the site of the former
village of Gremmin and the opencast
mine that replaced it.
Grfenhainchen has now set itself the target of abandoning its reliance on fossil fuels by 2020 and
becoming self-sufficient in energy,
mainly from solar and geothermal
sources. This is intended to give the
environment, damaged by decades
of opencast mining, the chance to regenerate itself. Using renewable energy is also intended to create jobs,
which will help to counter the decline
in population. At present gas and oil
are the principal energy sources, but
the first pilot projects for energy-efficient building, outlined in the 2004
urban development concept draft,
are already complete. For example,
two new buildings in Ackerstrasse,
occupied mainly by opencast mining
pensioners, use only geothermal and
solar energy. We pay about two
thirds less for our energy, one satisfied resident is able to report, the
energy comes from the sun and out
of the ground.
DEVELOPMENT:
Is the vision still alive? Who
keeps it alive, and how?
Mayor Harry Rspelt has set himself the task of restructuring Grfenhainichen as a solar garden city. In
2003, Grfenhainichen successfully
submitted its city with new energy
project for inclusion in the Urban
Development 2010 International
Building Exhibition. It has since established contacts with model towns
in West Germany and Austria, convened an energy advisory board and

created a local government post to
include both experts and the public
in the redevelopment process. The
Wrme- und Energiegesellschaft
mbH (Heat and Energy Company;
WEG) was set up specially to work
on the redevelopment process.
FUNDING/OWNERSHIP
financed?
The initiatives that are already in
place were either funded by the individual housing associations or supported by the state. For example,
the Grfenhainicher Wohnungsgesellschaft mbH built the low-energy
buildings in Ackerstrasse, while several detached houses like the ones
in the Am Barbarasee housing park
have acquired state-subsided solar
installations in recent years. This
equipment is used mainly to supply
hot water, as systems meeting all the
energy needs represent a considerable investment for many people.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE:
residents?
A large percentage of the population lost their jobs when lignite mining was phased out. The population
of Grfenhainichen has declined by
roughly one third of the original figure since the collapse of communism, and is also aging rapidly. We
used to have a lot of children here,
but then scarcely any births were registered. Today there are only three
childrens day-care centres in Grfenhainichen, a kindergarten teacher tells us. Most young people
move to larger town or other parts
of Germany with their parents, or at
the latest when they leave school.
David, who lives in a slab-construction block in Gartenstrasse, does not
intend to stay in Grfenhainichen either. My friends are all in Wittenberg.
Im off too, as soon as Ive finished
school.
LIVING CONDITIONS:
Several of the towns slab construction blocks were demolished as part
of the Stadtumbau Ost (Urban Redevelopment Plan East) programme,
which is trying to solve the problem
of housing standing empty in East
Germany, and goes hand in hand
with ecological urban development
in Grfenhainichen. At the last count,
about half the slab-construction
blocks in Grfenhainichen were no
longer needed. In the buildings that
are still occupied, the upper floors
are particularly unpopular, as there
are no lifts. So construction workers
are demolishing the fourth and fifth
floors in several slab constructions in
the neighbourhood. The plan is to retain the lower-rise apartment blocks
and increase population density in
areas of the city that have already
been developed.
FUTURE PROSPECTS:
future?
In the long term, Grfenhainichen
is planning to use not just solar energy, but geothermal energy and
thermal energy from groundwater,
wind power, biomass and hydrogen.
Those involved are working on the
assumption that the north-south
facing houses in Grfenhainichen
old town and its geographical situation offer good conditions for efficient use of renewable energy. One
challenge to be met will be keeping
the population figures stable and reversing the decline by creating new
jobs. It is remarkable that Grfenhainichen is sticking to its concept of
ecologically sustainable urban development despite its financial problems and dwindling population.
SUSTAINABILITY:
Alongside some pilot projects, such
as the low-energy buildings in Ackerstrasse and solar plants in various
places, Grfenhainichen has also
changed its energy supply sources.
The city has disconnected itself from
the wasteful municipal heating connection with the former Zschornewitz power station site and attached
itself instead to a neighbourhood heating system, though this is still conventionally powered with natural
gas. As well as this, plans also include a solar power station in Ferropolis, the Iron City on the other side
of the Gremminer See. In the meantime, a kind of open-air museum has
developed there, featuring worn-out
rotary and bucket excavators from
the lignite mining days that act as a
backdrop for various events.
But Dr. Jger, one of the minds
behind the New Energy group urban
development concept, stresses that
developments are still at the planning stage. This is all just a start,
he states, theres not a great deal
to be seen yet.
33
02 GRFENHAINICHEN
34
35
02 GRFENHAINICHEN
36
02 GRFENHAINICHEN
37
02 GRFENHAINICHEN
38
39
03
THE ROMA SETTLEMENT

IN Hevesaranyos
HU
03 HEVESARANYOS
Facts
VISION:
encompass?
Situation

Founded
Area
Population
Population density
Planners
The local authority and the occupants themselves
approx. 20 km north-west of Eger

in north-east Hungary
c. 1945
0.1 km
approx. 120
600/km
480029N
201408E
P. 42 Outside the village of

Hevesaranyos, there is a settlement on a slope which is almost
entirely populated by Roma.
The inhabitants collect their
water in buckets from two
water pumps, produce hardly
any waste and consume little
electricity.
40
P. 43 In the Winter, wood which

has been collected over time
is used for heating in cast-iron
stoves. In the Summer, when it
becomes too hot in their modest homes, the inhabitants carry
their stoves into the yard and
cook outside.
P. 44 The inhabitants do seasonal work they pluck rosehips, sloes or fruit and, if it rains,
they gather snails. Some households cultivate the earth on a
small scale.
P. 45 The few cars in the settlement are only rarely used.

Anyone wanting to go into the
village walks or rides a bike. The
next town can be reached by bus,
which stops at the foot of the
settlement.
After the Second World War, a small

group of previously nomadic Romany
people settled in Hevesaranyos in
north-east Hungary. For centuries
previously, they had been subject to
enforced settlement measures. But
these often failed, as the Romany
people could not find any existing
basis for their existence and were
thus compelled to travel off again in
order to survive. Hungarian law required local authorities to house and
care for Romany communities, but
they were usually allotted sites in unattractive locations because of resistance from the local people and lack
of accommodation. This meant that
numbers of Romany settlements
came into being on the outskirts
of villages or, as in the case of the
settlement at Heveseranyos, some
distance from the place itself and linked with it only by a road.
As Magda Karolyn reports, the
Hevesaranyos Roma community
lived in tents in the village at first, before the local authority allotted each
family a building plot on the slope
outside the village. Here two roads
were built: first of all the narrower
Viola t, which is built like a terrace
on the slope, and a little later the somewhat wider Ibolya t, which runs
uphill from the main Eger-Hevesaranyos road. Each family was allowed
to build a house. Most of the houses
in Viola t are smaller and built of
clay, as they were built first, while in
Ibolya t rather more spacious brick
structures were erected.
DEVELOPMENT:
The Romany people of Hevesaranyos, who had traditionally worked as
basket-weavers and musicians, were
mainly employed in the surrounded
kolkhozes under communism, but
lost their jobs when the system collapsed. As their hand-made baskets
were increasingly less in demand,
many of them have since then taken
temporary jobs in agriculture, factories or kitchens.
Even though several families who
were able to afford it have moved
into the village in recent years, the
Romany settlement still exists and
is growing up the slope. Young families are building houses at the top
end of the village, so that Ibolya t is
now lined with houses almost up to
the crown of the hill.
3. FUNDING/OWNERSHIP
financed?
The houses are owner-occupied, and
they sell them to each other.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE:
residents?
The Hevesaranyos Romany people are
almost exclusively Hungarian; most of
them were born and bred here. Others
have married into the village or moved
here from neighbouring communities.
Most of the inhabitants do seasonal
work, have jobs in Hevesaranyos itself
or are hired by local farmers.
It is rare for a non-Romany to
come up into the settlement; mail
is the only common cause of a visit.
Children walk to the kindergarten or
to school in Hevesaranyos each day
but the older inhabitants use the village mainly for shopping, for work or
to go to church on Sunday.
Some families actually live in the
village, but nevertheless visit the
settlement on a regular basis. One of
these is Zsuzsanna, who prefers village life to life in the settlement. It
is quieter here and things are more
orderly. Theres almost always
something going on in the settlement,
and thats fine, but I like to be able to
detach myself from it as well.
LIVING CONDITIONS:
Everyone in the settlement, young
or old, knows and says hello to everyone else. I moved here a few years
ago because I have family and friends
here who are very important to me,
says Maria, a young woman. I feel
at home here, and its more peaceful
than in town. The accommodation
is modest, offers very few comforts
and much of everyday life is acted
out in the street. Children play there,
and the older inhabitants sit together on benches or ledges on walls to
chat to each other. Magda, an older
woman, has spent almost all her life
in the settlement. I am at home here,
and theres something for me to do
every day. I get bored when I visit my
daughter in the next village, where
none of the people are Romanies.
They just sit in front of the television;
there isnt a soul in the street.
FUTURE PROSPECTS:
future?
No drastic changes are expected in
the near future, but some Romany
people are now better educated and
will be able to afford bigger houses,
so a gradual improvement in housing
standards can be expected. It is still
not known if and when the Romany
settlement will be connected to the
mains water supply or the municipal
sewerage system.
SUSTAINABILITY:
The Roma communitys way of life
is ecologically sound, more from necessity than environmental awareness. Only a tiny percentage of
the families has a car. Anyone who
wants to get to the next village or
to Eger takes the bus that runs from
the country road below the settlement. There is no running water in
the settlement. As all the water has
to be pumped up by the inhabitants
themselves and carried home in buckets, it is used very sparingly. If a
bath is needed, the water has to be
heated up on the cast-iron woodburning stoves that are still used for
cooking food and to heat the houses
in winter. Electricity is used mainly
for lighting and for radio and television, and consumption is correspondingly low. Rubbish is not collected
from the Romany settlement - in
fact surprisingly little accumulates.
A lot of it is burned in stoves or fed to
animals. The settlement nestles in a
green, hilly landscape with a wealth
of wild plants that some of the residents collect and put to good use.
A lot of furniture is bought secondhand, swapped with neighbours and
renovated.
41
03 HEVESARANYOS
42
03 HEVESARANYOS
43
03 HEVESARANYOS
44
45
04
Milton Keynes
GB
04 Milton Keynes
Facts
VISION:
encompass?
Location
Founded
Building started
Area
Population
Population density
Planners
Richard Llewelyn Davies,

Derek Walker/ Milton Keynes Development Corporation
Buckinghamshire, GB
1967
1971
88 km
184,500
2096 inhabitants/km
DEVELOPMENT:
520239N
04158W
P. 48 Milton Keynes has been

characterised as a homage to
the car, among other things.
All the districts of the city are
surrounded by multiple-lane
roads which cause considerable
noise, whereas pedestrians and
cyclists are consigned to bridges
and subways.
46
P. 49 Originally, no house was to

be higher than the tallest tree.
Although this resolution has
now finally been broken, at least
in the city centre, Milton Keynes is still regarded as a model of
planned landscape settlement
with its spread-out buildings
and lack of underground parking places.
Milton Keynes was founded in the

late 1960s in a formerly rural area
equidistant from London, Birmingham, Leicester, Oxford and Cambridge. It was intended to relieve
severe overpopulation in London in
particular. The town took its name
from one of the 18 villages it absorbed when it was founded.
The radical urban design is based
on a street grid with sides one kilometre long, a network that can theoretically be extended ad infinitum.
This and the fact that Milton Keynes started out as a tabula rasa attracted a number of distinguished
architects including Norman Foster,
Henning Larsen and Ralph Erskine.
Richard Llewelyn Daviess master
plan stipulated that each district
should form an independent unit
with housing and shopping facilities,
and each was designed in a style of
its own.
P. 50 The market in the centre

is directly in front of the huge
shopping centre and is one of
the few lively elements in the
city. The many stands and small
shops were not part of the stringent plan.
P. 51 It is difficult to live here

without a car, as most of the
inhabitants have now found out.
Public transport is inadequate,
the distances are large and so
people prefer to use the car,
which is parked directly in front
of the house.
The town is still in a state of permanent expansion, and its population

is growing by a remarkable 15% per
year.
The original intention was that
no building should be taller than the
tallest tree. This low development
structure is also retained in the new
building areas on the outskirts of the
present settlement. But the height
restrictions were eased in the centre a few years ago, and several highrise buildings are now in place, above
all business premises and hotels. The
wide Midsummer Boulevard, which
runs from the station to the shopping centre, could also be in a North
American city.
Despite the increasing population figures, Milton Keynes, derided
as an eternal suburb, competed unsuccessfully for formal city status
in 2000 and 2002. Contrary to its
poor reputation, Milton Keynes is
very popular with the people who
live there. Many of them would like
to retain the grid network and the extensive development programme.
3. FUNDING/OWNERSHIP
financed?
Homes are largely rented in the more
densely populated areas, but the detached houses and villas in the more
prosperous parts, some distance
away from the centre and particularly by lakes in the surrounding area,
are usually owner-occupied.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE:
residents?
Most of the population moved here
from London and South Buckinghamshire, and the average age is relatively low. The older residents are
largely people who lived here before the town was founded. People
work mainly in the light industry and
other businesses that have sprung up
in various parts of Milton Keynes, or
they commute to London by train.
The inhabitants tend to gather in the
gigantic Shopping Centre designed
by Stuart Mosscrop with its many
chain stores and restaurants. This
and the improvised market beside
it have become the towns principal
meeting places.
LIVING CONDITIONS:
I passed through Milton Keynes with
a friend last summer. All we saw
were the sound protection barriers
and the roadside trees, you couldnt
see any houses, reports Bisiola, who
now lives in Milton Keynes. Her cycling tour made her decide to move
here. I liked the idea of the completely separate residential areas,
which are also screened off from the
centre with its shops and all that hustle and bustle.
Walking round Milton Keynes is
not particularly pleasant. The town
was laid out in the sixties on a chessboard pattern inspired by Melvin M.
Webber, deriving its approach quite
specifically from the increasing
use of private cars. Cars have wide,
straight roads at their disposal, and
a whole host of car parks that take
up a great deal of room, while pedestrians have to make to with inadequate pavements. It is rare for
cycle- or footpaths to lead directly
from A to B, which is why cycling is

more of a leisure activity in Milton
Keynes than an effective means of
transport.
The network of four-lane roads
that runs through the whole of Milton Keynes, surrounding the individual districts, causes a great deal of
noise pollution for many inhabitants.
You get used to it, says a young man
called Max, and anyway, what can
you do about it? When crossing the
bridges to get from one district to
the next you feel more as though
you are above a motorway than in
a town.
SUSTAINABILITY:
FUTURE PROSPECTS:
future?
Even though shopping facilities,
commerce, rented and owner-occupied housing rub shoulders with
no particular hierarchy, the socially
disadvantaged areas tend to be concentrated near the centre. Some districts are going through a process of
social change, Netherfields for example, where the third generation of incomers has managed to improve the
seedy image considerably. Other still
emergent districts are in danger of
degenerating into modern slums,
as one older Milton Keynes resident
fears.
The road network in Milton Keynes

was actually planned so that no one
would live more than 500 metres
from the nearest bus stop. In fact
public transport leaves a great deal
to be desired, and the many roundabouts are difficult for buses to manoeuvre around. The residents have
drawn the obvious conclusion from
this: If you live here, you need a car,
says Bisiola. This level of dependence
is unsustainable in the long run, and
hard to reconcile with the garden
city image. The town is said to have
22 million trees, which would qualify it as a forest area. Even though
the many trees help to keep air pollution in check, it is impossible not to
suspect that nature has been downgraded to a mere statistical quantity
here. One older inhabitant put it particularly dramatically, I dont think
this towns up-to-date any more.
47
04 Milton Keynes
48
49
04 Milton Keynes
50
51
05
SOLAR CITY, LINZ

AU
06 SOLAR CITY, LINZ
Facts
VISION:
encompass?
Location Linz-Pichling, Upper Austria
Foundation
1994
1999
Area
32 ha
Population
approx. 3,000
Population density
9,375 inhabitants/km
Planners
Prof. Roland Rainer, Vienna, Austria

Herzog + Partner, Munich, Germany
READ group (Thomas Herzog, Norman
Foster, Richard Rogers, Norbert Kaiser)
481429N
142213E
P. 54 The new city district is

especially popular with families that have children. There are
hardly any cars in the area and
there are lots of places to play
between the houses.
52
P. 55 The plans also encompassed the green areas, which

were created with earth from
nearby Lake Weikerl and elsewhere. They are all laid out differently and are so popular with
the inhabitants that the biotope
located behind them, with all
its rare animals, remain mostly
untouched.
P. 56 The new estate is easy to

find ones way around in. The
centre at Lunaplatz with all
the necessary facilities can be
reached easily by foot from everywhere.
P. 57 Cars are not necessarily a

part of the image of Solar City.
Private traffic is diverted underground and the tram takes the
inhabitants into the city center
of Linz in half an hour.
At the beginning of the nineties, although jobs were available in the

Upper Austrian provincial capital of
Linz, there were not enough houses
and apartments for the some 12,000
people looking for homes. The main
demand was for rented apartments.
Under Mayor Franz Dobusch, the
Linz city government initially commissioned urban planner Roland
Rainer to plan an urban expansion
in the suburb of Pichling, situated in
an area of natural beauty that was
otherwise in danger of becoming an
industrial estate. The area was seen
as a development zone where up to
25,000 people would be able to live.
To take full account of the ecodevelopment of the area, the city
previously better-known primarily
as an industrial location consulted
Munich architect Thomas Herzog.
Together with the Linz Director of
Construction, Franz-Xaver Goldner, he presented the idea of a Solar
City for the first time. To a large extent, the new housing estate must
do without the use of fossil energy
sources and be designed on economically sustainable principles. The city
created must be largely car-free, a
compact city of short travelling distances, with passive and active use of
solar energy and an environmentallyfriendly wastewater disposal system.
Ultimately, the centre of the Solar City,
with 750 apartments and part of the
infrastructure, was designed by Herzog and his READ (Renewable Energies Architectures and Design) group
colleagues, Norman Foster, Richard
Rogers and energy technology planner Norbert Kaiser. As well as high architectural demands, these buildings
also had to meet the criteria of lowenergy construction and lowest possible level of environmental pollution.
DEVELOPMENT:
it alive, and how?
The first part of the Solar City was
recently completed years, with due
regard to the eco-criteria. Twelve
property companies and 19 architects, each of whom designed in a different style, created the residential
buildings, which are grouped in a radial-concentric arrangement around
the centre of the Solar City. The city
centre was designed by Auer + Weber,

winners of an architecture competition, and is easily accessible by foot
from all houses and apartments. Roland Rainers original master plan always envisaged that Linz-Pichling
must not just become a dormitory
town. So special importance was attached to the development of public
amenities and good transport links. In
addition, Reinhard Gutmann and Ulla
Schreiber joined the planning team
as experts in socio-cultural overall
planning and woman-friendly housing respectively. Not only was the new
district provided with a centre with
shopping facilities, but also a school
with crche, a kindergarten and a
parkland area. Added to this, a new
tram route was opened in 2005, linking the centre of the Solar City to Linz
in just half an hour. In theory at least,
this made the use of private cars
which mainly run and park underground in Solar City unnecessary.
FUNDING/OWNERSHIP
financed?
Solar City was supported by both
the Province of Upper Austria and
the EU (APAS fund for renewable energy). In addition, five of the houses
designed to low-energy standards
by Martin Treberspurg were supported by the Federal Ministry of
Transport, Innovation and Technology. Although the city was able to acquire the land for the housing estate
at a reasonable price, the planning
costs were considerable and Solar
City would definitely not have been
realised in such high quality without
the development funds.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE:
residents?
The residents of Solar City Linz are
mainly families with children plus a
scattering of older people, but very few
middle-aged people. Children still play
on the playgrounds between the newlybuilt houses, even late in the evening.
Natascha, a mother-of-three who has
lived in Solar City for two years, just
cannot imagine moving away again
and is full of praise for the childrenfriendly planning. The children are always outdoors. They have lots of
friends and can walk to school.
Most of the people who live in
Solar City work in Linz and usually

orientate themselves towards Linz
too, whereas in Solar City they only
use the most essential shops and facilities in the centre, as well as the Volkshaus (community hall) on Lunaplatz,
which accommodates such facilities
as a municipal library, an adult education centre and a senior citizens club.
LIVING CONDITIONS:
One resident compares life in Solar
City with life in a small village. You
know the neighbours, you can walk
everywhere and bathe in the lake in
the summer. It seems as though the
idea of a largely car-free city where
the public amenities and local public transport must be accessible by
foot, and so made more attractive,
has been successful. What car traffic
there is is immediately diverted underground and held in underground
car parks. As Natascha reports, it is
very easy for parents to take their
children to the kindergarten on foot
before taking the tram to work. In
keeping with the well-prepared
concept of solar construction, the
apartments themselves are aligned
to make optimal use of daylight, and
adequate spacing between houses
means that they are still bright, even
in the winter months. Every apartment has access to a balcony, a roof
terrace, a garden or conservator.
Almost the whole of Solar City
is surrounded by an undulating park
that was built with the material excavated when extending the Kleiner
Weikerlsee Lake. As well as the
generous green areas between the
houses, and the many playgrounds,
the nearby Traun-Auen and Weikerlsee recreation areas are also very
popular with local residents, especially in the summer.
SUSTAINABILITY:
What can be said about the resource-consciousness of the city
The objective of low environmental
pollution was pursued consistently in
the planning of Solar City, and was not
simply restricted to the use of solar
energy but also included wastewater
disposal, transport and the countryside bordering on the housing estate.
Apart from solar cell arrays and good

thermal insulation, the solar architecture, which was geared towards low
fossil energy usage, also included
special planning of the buildings and
apartments. In Solar City, there are
extremely narrow houses with single
apartments that are sun-drenched all
day. Five of the residential homes designed by Martin Treberspurg use
no conventional heating whatsoever. Roughly half of the housing estates hot water requirement is met
by solar thermal energy this is more
than originally planned. The balance
of the useful heat reaches the housing estate via a well-insulated district
heating system.
The 106 apartments and school
designed by Michael Loudon are
completely wastewater-free and
so have no wastewater connection.
Wastewater is disposed of in a separate system: urine is recycled as biomanure, whereas the grey water is
filtered and separated into compostable solid materials and lownutrient liquid, which is ultimately
discharged into the nearby stream.
Solar Citys environment-friendly
concept also includes sustainable
planning of the surrounding countryside. The park surrounding the
housing estate was laid out so attractively by Atelier Dreiseitl that
only a few residents of the estate
visit the biotope that lies beyond.
So a natural habitat for rare and endangered animals and plants has remained preserved in the immediate
vicinity of the housing estate.
FUTURE PROSPECTS:
future?
The aim is to extend Solar City even
further. Space is available for this,
mainly towards Ebelsberg and Linz.
Expansion would certainly benefit the
infrastructure too, which up to now
has always suffered from a shortage
of customers. Some of the shops in
the centre of Solar City have already
had to close and are now standing
empty. Only the shops for everyday
requirements, such as food shops, the
bakery and a few coffeehouses have
survived. It is safe to assume that the
planning of the further extension of
the housing estate will also stay true
to the concept of low environmental
pollution, and will be carried out in
small but meaningful steps.
53
05 SOLAR CITY
54
55
05 SOLAR CITY
56
05 SOLAR CITY
57
06
BENIDORM
ES
06 Benidorm
Facts
VISION:
encompass?
Location
Founded
Start of change into
a tourist destination:
Area
Population

Population density

Planners
about 1960
38.5 km
69,735 (in 2005)
+ up to 450,000 tourists
+ up to 1,1700 tourists/km
Francisco Muoz, Pedro Bigador et al.
Marina Baixa, Alicante province, Spain

1325
383213N
00745W
P. 60 In the 1950s, Benidorm

was still a small town, which
mainly lived from the fishing
industry. Today, it is a destination for mass tourism and has
one of the greatest housing densities in the world.
58
P. 61 Even in Winter, the city is

visited by a great many tourists.
Especially Spanish pensioners
like to take a holiday here during
the cold part of the year.
Benidorm is efficient when
it comes to housing seasonal
guests or using space and
energy. In the view of many
experts, the densely populated
city is a lasting alternative to
the settlement of Spains Mediterranean coastline as a result

of tourism.
P. 62 The people of Benidorm
spend most of their day outside
their apartments. The streets
are lively and, away from the
hotels with their roof terraces
and pools, a cross-section of perfectly normal city life can be
found.
P. 63 The same beach and the

same view for everyone: The residential blocks and skyscrapers
were intended to create equality
among the inhabitants according to the will of the city planners.
Benidorm in the fifties was just a

little town whose inhabitants had
made a living from fishing for centuries, but within a very short time it
developed into a tourist destination
famous mainly for its skyscrapers.
After the town became accessible
by road from Alicante and the rest
of Spain from 1914, it opened up first
of all to tourists from Madrid. The
first hotels were built in the twenties.
When Spain lost its South American
colonies it also lost its income from
deep-sea fishing. For this reason the
Almadraba fishery in Rac de lOix in
Benidorm had to close along with
numerous other small fisheries. This
put paid to a key factor in the regional economy. Many families were
faced with financial ruin and the population of Benidorm went down rapidly. In this situation, tourism, which
Spain had opened up to again after
its economic and diplomatic isolation in the 40s, represented a welcome alternative source of income.
In 1954 the local authority, under
its young mayor Pedro Zaragoza
Orts, presented a new urban development plan proposing, above all,
that the town should expand with
family houses and small hotels repeating structures that were already in place. Benidorm started to
switch from fishing and agriculture
to the tourism sector. Finally, in 1956
a general plan (Plan General de Ordenacin) came into force: this provided for intensive urbanisation in
Benidorm and was intended to pave
the way for the skyscraper city.
From 1960, experiments started
on building with no height restrictions.
When Frontalmar, the first skyscraper, was built Benidorm started
to develop as the architects bon
mot has it, from a sardine tin to a
cigarette packet town. The number
of inhabitants had doubled between
1950 and 1960 and the tourist numbers increased significantly in the
1960s. Foreign visitors came to Benidorm in their own cars at first, until
Benidorm linked up with the international air travel network when Altet
airport opened in Alicante.
DEVELOPMENT:
it alive, and how?
Benidorm, sometimes referred to as
the Spanish Manhattan, has more
skyscrapers per inhabitant than any
other city in the world. There is no
doubt that the idea of relying on tourism as a source of income has been
successful. Benidorm was originally
a fishing town, and now has more
hotel beds than any town other than
Paris and London, and produces 11%
of Spains income from tourism. The
population has increased more than
tenfold since 1960.
This ultra-rapid growth brought
a number of infrastructural problems with it that had to be resolved
- adequate water supply, public transport and education had to be provided. Benidorm did not always show
very much enthusiasm for this, as the
architect Juan-Jos Chiner Vices has
remarked. For example, the building
of the motorway in the seventies
was opposed just as much as it was
supported. The town is still growing.
The Gran Hotel Bali, with 52 storeys
the tallest building on the Iberian peninsula, did not open until 2002, and
more skyscrapers are being built in
the hinterland to provide both housing and hotel facilities.
FUNDING/OWNERSHIP
financed?
The town belongs to a confusingly
large number of individual owners,
some of whom are immigrants, from
other EU countries in particular.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE:
residents?
The Spanish population of Benidorm
moved in mainly from Andalucia and
Castile. It now lives side by side with
the 30% of foreigners, who come
mainly from the UK and other EU
countries. The official number of permanent residents is 69,000. But the
real figures are undoubtedly higher,
as many of the immigrants are not officially registered. In summer, there
are about half a million people in Benidorm, including tourists.
Unlike many other Spanish holiday resorts, the Benidorm season
lasts all year round. In the winter
months, the visitors are mostly pensioners. Many of them Spaniards, but
the summer visitors are younger and
the proportion of foreigners is higher.
Many of the Spanish residents, and
increasingly the immigrant inhabitants, are employed in the tourist
industry and work in hotels, restaurants or municipal facilities.
LIVING CONDITIONS:
Despite its tourist character, everyday life in Benidorm is quite normal
and in the districts a bit further away
from the beach, life in the streets is
the same as in any other Spanish
town. The tourists spend most of their
time in the hotels or near the beach.
The urbanisation of Benidorm was
not just aimed at effective development, but also at making the town
more uniform. Developing the residential blocks was intended to give
the inhabitants equal rights: each one
was to have a light and airy flat, the
same view of the sea and access to
the beach. But in fact the intensive
development meant that all the public
spaces, beaches and roads are intensively used. People spend a great deal
of time out of their homes each day:
15 hours, according to a study, three
of which are taken up with walking
around town or on the beach.
Private cars do not play a very
big role but the bus service is very
good all over Benidorm. The original
idea of the development plan was
that every residential block should
have room for a green area as a result of its open form, but reality has
since put paid to these plans. The
open spaces have now largely been
replaced with smaller buildings or
car parks, used primarily by up to
40,000 visitors who arrive from
other places daily.
SUSTAINABILITY:
Compared with the voracious urbanisation of the Spanish Mediterranean
coast, in which often illegal settlements now cover a band fifty kilometres wide, the efficiency of resources
and land use is considerably higher
in Benidorm.
In recent years in particular, the urbanisation of the surrounding area

has proceeded very rapidly. More
has been built on the Valencian coast
than in its whole previous settlement
history. More and more people want
their own house in the sun, so millions
of Spanish dwellings are not owned
by prosperous immigrants from
countries such as the UK and Germany. Many stand empty for long periods each year, and can be reached
only by car. The immigrants interested are scarcely compatible with
sustainable regional development.
But they are entitled to vote in the
Spanish local elections and so have
considerable influence, even forming
the majority in some wards. Building development on the Mediterranean coast seems unstoppable and
with it the regions consumption of
resources. For example, a single golf
course consumes as much water per
year as 15,000 people. One third of
Spain is already on the way to being
transformed into a desert.
But Benidorms residential blocks
and high-rise buildings occupy a relatively insignificant amount of land in
proportion to the population figures,
and are also efficient in another respect: the people of Benidorm consume less water than the national
average. People use mainly public transport, or get around on foot,
and the available buildings are used
intensively throughout the year. And
even though tourism is not particularly ecologically sound because of
the associated air travel, it can be
assumed that concentrating floods
of tourists in a place like Benidorm
is considerably more environment
friendly than the overbuilding and
destruction that is taking place in
the rest of Spain.
FUTURE PROSPECTS:
future?
Presumably Benidorm will continue
to grow, both horizontally and vertically. Even more skyscrapers and
hotels are already being built. One
challenge created by desertification
in Spain will be the water supply. Economically, Benidorm will continue to
benefit from mass tourism by air for
some time, without being directly affected by its ecological and climatic
consequences.
59
06 BENIDORM
60
06 BENIDORM
61
06 BENIDORM
62
63
07
CHRISTIANIA
DK
07 CHRISTIANIA
Facts
VISION:
encompass?
Location
Foundation
Area
Population
Population density
Planner
More than 35 years after its founding, Christiania still has around 850
inhabitants, many of them third
generation Christianites, to use the
term they call themselves. The old
barracks and houses have been renovated by the combined efforts of
the inhabitants. Particularly in the
Dyssen area along the waterfront, a
range of buildings has been created,
whose original and individual designs
are a testimony to their independence of architectural trends and city
planning criteria. The Christianites
have created a social network within
the neighbourhood and set up many
small companies and shops, restaurants, and cafs together with social facilities such as kindergartens.
With thousands of visitors every day,
the Christiania experiment is now
one of the biggest tourist attractions
of Copenhagen.
554035N
123407E
P. 66 Christiania in the Copenhagen city district of Christianshavn was established at the

end of the 1960s after young
residents opened the former
site of a barracks and occupied
it. Today, more than 800 people
still live in the free settlement,
which was initially tolerated as
a social experiment.
64
P. 67 The people of Christiania

have organised numerous facilities themselves, such as a post
office, kindergartens and political decision-making bodies. Any
possible improvements to the
buildings or the organisation of
Christiania are jointly decided
on. The houses are not for sale
and their occupants themselves
renovate or extend them.
The Freetown Christiania was created in 1971 when the area around
the former military barracks on the
historical ramparts in the Copenhagen borough of Christianshavn was
occupied by young people. It was
founded with the goal of creating
a self-governing society in which
each and every individual can freely
develop while bearing responsibility
for the community. The aim was to
create an economically self-sustaining community. After all attempts
by the state to dislodge the inhabitants failed due to the areas size
and the large number of inhabitants,
both sides agreed in 1972 to tolerate
Christiania as a social experiment.
DEVELOPMENT:
it alive, and how?
The inhabitants themselves.
Christianshavn, Copenhagen, DK
1971
1971
0.34 km
approximately 850
P. 68 Christiania is an open
site with several entrances and,
except for a few delivery vehicles, cars are not permitted
inside. Every day sees the arrival
of visitors who have come to
take a stroll through the village
in a city or to patronise one of
the many cafs and restaurants.
P. 69 Apart from the original

barracks buildings, the inhabitants also built numerous houses
themselves in accordance with
the criteria of environmentfriendly building. The banana
house, for example, was built
entirely with recycled materials.
FUNDING/OWNERSHIP
financed?
Until 2004, the ground on which
Christiania stands was the property
of the Ministry of Defence. Thereafter ownership passed to the Finance
Ministry as part of the normalisation plans of the new liberal-conservative Danish government. The
inhabitants reached an agreement
with the Ministry of Defence in 1972
whereby the residents would pay the

costs for water, electricity, refuse
collection and the like. In addition
to the taxes that every Christianite
pays to the Danish state, Christiania
pays the city of Copenhagen a compensation to make up for the loss in
tax revenues.
The houses are not for sale and
there are no lease contracts. Instead,
every Christianite pays the same
amount into a common fund. Living
space is allocated on the basis of application procedures held in community forums, where every inhabitant
can influence the choice of new people coming in.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE:
residents?
The population of Christiania is very
varied. Many inhabitants have lived
here since the founding of Christiania, while others have moved in
later from many different parts of
the world. The age of the population
varies widely; it ranges from young
families with small children to senior
citizens born in the 1920s. Many of
the Christianites, among them former
hippies, idealists and bohemians, earn
their living as artists, work in social
or artisan jobs or in various organizations in Christiania or Copenhagen or
are studying at university. Christiania
also attracts eccentrics and welfare
recipients. Thats the nice thing
about it, says one woman who has
been living in Christiania since the seventies, there are all sorts of people
here and there is room for everyone.
Particularly people with manual
skills are very much in demand. All
the houses in Christiania were built
or renovated collectively. You first
have to know how to lay down a
sewer pipe or insulate a house, according to a Christianite. All sorts of
workmen live here, but they dont always have time to be everywhere.
Christiania governs itself: the
consensual democracy may be sluggish and time-consuming with its
communal forums and monthly district meetings, but it functions nevertheless. There are many small
groups that look after different social areas. There is a home economics team, a gardening group, a team
for waste disposal and a negotiation
group, whose tasks consist primarily
of communicating with the authorities on various matters.
LIVING CONDITIONS:
Both inhabitants and visitors perceive Christiania as a small village in
the middle of a city. Most of the residents know one another; the area
is hilly and has been largely left unspoiled; it is crisscrossed with unpaved roads and paths and cars are
not permitted in the area.
In the centre close to so-called
Pusher Street, are renovated military apartment buildings, some of
which have been partially remodelled inside, and small, older, brick
houses. In more isolated areas, the
inhabitants have converted some
of the bastions and bulwarks of the
former fortifications into dwellings
and built a number of colourful and
extravagant houses themselves.
The Christianites operate various facilities themselves, including
a post office, a bath house, a grocery
store, a bakery, kindergartens, and
youth facilities as well as a theatre,
concert halls, restaurants and cafs.
In addition, there are several small
companies such as the Green Recycling Hall (Den Grnne Genbrugshal),
which belongs to the communal exchequer, a bicycle repair shop and a
blacksmiths shop.
Christiania has many visitors
every day: tourists or people from adjacent neighbourhoods who want to
take a walk outdoors. However in recent years, following the new government policies, the Freetown has
experienced a massive increase in police presence, and there have been repeated violent clashes.
SUSTAINABILITY:
After an widespread building boom

in the eighties, during which areas
along the waterfront were threatened with extensive development, a
complete halt was called in 1987 to
any further building activities until,
in 1991, all parties finally agreed on a
Green Plan for further development.
Numerous houses were either relocated or entirely demolished to prevent the destruction of a sensitive
natural area.
Although no cars are permitted
in Christiana, around 130 cars are
owned by some of the 850 inhabitants. In the past few years, the transport group has had to find parking
spaces outside the residential area
and also create a serpentine shaped
public park.
FUTURE PROSPECTS:
future?
In 2001, Denmark returned a liberal-conservative government and,
for the first time in the history of the
Freetown, a majority of the Parliament was hostile to Christiania.
The governments plans envisage
a normalisation and privatisation
of Christiania. In 2004, it was decided to change the so-called Lex
Christiania, such that a partial privatisation and the erection of new
apartment houses would be possible on the valuable real estate. The
residents fear that this would finally
result in Christiania becoming just a
normal district of Copenhagen.
Meanwhile, the general support
for the continuance of the social experiment is great: three fourths of all
Danish citizens are in favour of Christiania being preserved, and an architectural competition commissioned
by the government with the aim of
creating a new master plan for Christiania came to nothing due to the limited number of submitted proposals
and the lack of suitable concepts.
Christiania attaches great importance to recycling and to building

methods designed to save resources.
Several houses have been built with
recycled materials; the Banana
House (Bananhuset), for example,
which consists entirely of reused
building materials and is insulated
with natural materials such as wood
shavings and wool. No money has
been available for larger ecological
projects, but the community does try
to follow environment-friendly criteria on a smaller scale.
65
07 CHRISTIANIA
66
67
07 CHRISTIANIA
68
07 CHRISTIANIA
69
DAYLIGHTING
DETAILS
Taking a closer look: how daylighting

is brought into buildings
By Norbert Fisch, Stefan Plesser and Thomas Wilken

Illustrations by Claire Scully
How can we design our buildings to be more energy
efficient? Through multidisciplinary planning from the
word go, say the experts. But it is not always the case
that measures conceived at the planning stage are
actually implemented in practice. Thats because
modern building installations are becoming ever more
complex, and the demands for convenience on the part
of the user ever higher.
Energy Design:
Architecture and
Climate Change
70
Since the 1990s there has been a new actor on the scene in
the building planning process. In co-operation with architects and departmental planners, it is the task of the energy
designer to utilise, at the earliest possible stage, all the available potential for achieving the functional goals of a building with the greatest level of energy efficiency. Among other
factors, this trend was initiated by the increasingly stringent
and more comprehensive legal requirements pertaining to the
energy efficiency of buildings.
The way forward was hugely controversial. In the 1990s the
energy efficiency of buildings was suddenly the focal point of
much discussion. In the light of the new, more stringent regulations, many people argued strongly that the freedom of
architects to do their job was becoming irreversibly restricted
by a tough new system of standards. Due to the level of heat
insulation required, in future there would only be Styrofoam
boxes and arrow-slit architecture.
With the rwe Tower in Essen, Christoph Ingenhoven built
the first ecological tower block in Germany, the first expression of a pervasive glass building style. The new buildings
replaced the fully air-conditioned and mirrored-glass office
blocks built on the American model (which were also primarily glass-oriented) and claimed for themselves the labels of
energy efficiency and ecological responsibility.
In the late 1990s, Karl Gertis published an extensive theoretical inquiry into the new design concepts, which was critical of their record with regard to energy efficiency. At the
same time he bemoaned the fact that there was a stifling
amount of qualitatively descriptive literature on the subject,
but that an urgent need still remained for detailed measurements under practical conditions. The lack of certainty
with regard to the practical effectiveness of the glazed facades
not only led to the equation glass=ecology being frequently
marketed uncritically and to inflationary effect, but also to
criticism of them being similarly articulated on the basis of
equally flimsy evidence.
Here the question resonated for the first time: do the innovative buildings of the 1990s actually work? Are they justified in
bearing the eco label? Or are the reproaches one occasionally
hears correct that the glass boxes are devourers of energy and
that they overheat intolerably in summer into the bargain?
Left Excessive waste of energy

with artificial light: If the daylight planning of a building is
unsatisfactory and the sun protection not flexible enough, interior lighting will automatically
go on even in broad daylight.
The German government reacted to the necessity of building

more energy-efficient buildings and to the lack of evidence of
their practical effectiveness with a research programme entitled solarbau:monitor, which today bears the title EnBau and
is a part of the research programme EnOB Engergieoptimiertes Bauen [energy-optimised building]. Since its inception,
energy-optimised designs have not only been developed and
implemented in more than 20 EnBau demonstration buildings, but they are also monitored and measured throughout
their working life.
Monitoring office buildings:
measurement is worth it
At the igs the Institut fr Gebude- und Solartechnik [Institute for Building and Solar Engineering] at the Technical University (tu) of Braunschweig, we have developed a number of the
concepts used in these demonstration buildings. The buildings
were then examined by means of an intensive monitoring process during actual operational use, and it was determined that an
increase in energy efficiency of more than 50% above the standard is possible, without any negative impact on comfort.
A well-known example is the EnergieForum in Berlin, one
of whose features is a glazed, south-facing atrium that, thanks
to structurally high-grade cladding and slim structural design,
does not overheat in summer. It has a high degree of transparency and does not require additional solar protection.
An integrated energy supply concept was developed for
the office block, paying particular attention to regenerative
and rational energy technologies. Between 2003 and 2006, a
long-term study documented the operation of the building
including user comfort. The measurement results show that
the primary energy consumption level was up to 15% lower
than the threshold value. An excess consumption of nearly
26% in respect of heating energy is compensated for through
a greater yield from regenerative energy using thermal heat
pumps and ground posts.
With the commissioning of the building management system in the autumn of 2003, individual problems and faults
during operation of the building were detected and rectified
in close co-operation with the buildings management staff.
Measurements were taken in a total of 56 office rooms in
71
Cold from above, warm from

below: If the technical systems
of a building are not optimally
balanced, the well-being of the
occupants will suffer. And not
everyone is willing to adapt to
climatic extremes in the building
with appropriate clothing.
the new building to evaluate the heat insulation properties in

the summer months. The detailed analysis showed that the fact
that the air temperature in the rooms sometimes exceeded 27c
can be explained by incompletely optimised management and
building systems. Specifically, the following faults occurred:
Flow temperature too high during concrete core tempering due to a building systems error. In individual rooms this
led to room air temperatures of over 26c, particularly during
the transitional periods in spring and autumn
A defective valve in the dynamic heating system led to the
inlet air temperature in the offices being raised too sharply
The controller for the cooling function temperature sensors
was not calibrated, and gave readings for room air temperatures that were too low. This led to the cooling of the corresponding rooms being triggered too late.
By optimising the operation, in the first three years of the
buildings useful life around 735 MWh of heating energy and
costs of around 35,000 were saved. Without intensive monitoring, the increased energy consumption levels would not have
been discovered. The example of the EnergieForum shows that
planning, implementation and, above all, actual operation must
be closely monitored, in order to run buildings effectively.
with cooling modules, the waste heat from which is used to

heat the atrium in winter.
Further fundamental elements of the design are natural ventilation through the windows, an air inlet atrium that is combined with a design for night-time ventilation, and a window
surface area of only about 35% to guard against overheating
in the summer. In addition, there is automatic solar protection,
along with daylight and motion-detector controlled lighting.
The empirically determined energy consumption values
for the building are in line with the target values, or even a
little lower. Alongside the optimisation of energy efficiency,
the focus of the evaluation was on internal climate and user
comfort in the standard offices and the ventilation concept
for the air inlet atrium.
Under normal summer conditions, temperatures in all
office rooms exceeded 26c for less than 10% of working time.
In addition to the optimised cladding, night-time ventilation
protects against overheating. The users are taking the concept
to heart, and at the same time building costs are reduced by
eliminating the need for automation.
In winter, the limited temperature selection range in the
office rooms of 20c 1 Kelvin led to dissatisfaction among
users. Some felt that a maximum internal air temperature
of 21c was not high enough. The selection range was therefore increased.
The light switches with time delay relays installed in internal corridors did not find sufficiently widespread acceptance
among the users and were therefore replaced with a time
switch. This has the effect that corridor lighting is in operation throughout the day, and in some parts of the building also
at night and at weekends, accounting for a considerable proportion of the total electricity consumption (daytime >10%).
The users want a say

As a further demonstration building, the Informatics Centre
at the tu Braunschweig filled a shortfall in town planning
requirements with the addition of an annex on universityowned land in 2001. Three-quarters of the buildings area
capacity is available for offices and administration, while the
remainder is used as laboratories. Until 2007, the operation
of the building was accompanied by scientific appraisal in the
context of the eva evaluation project.
Alongside a primary energy requirement of less than 100
kWh/mngfa, a substantive planning goal was to achieve a
cost-optimised combination of various constructional measures to reduce annual operating costs. The original plan for
an open inner courtyard was changed on a cost-neutral basis
into a glass-covered atrium, which then became the central
building block of the climate and energy design. The highly
heat-insulated building was supplied with mains power and
district heating; only the computing rooms were equipped
Integrated planning from the start

The buildings show that the desired properties of energy efficiency and user comfort could not be realised using traditional methods. The new architectural concepts demanded a
re-calibration of thought processes in all areas: planning, construction and operation. The term integrated planning took
hold relatively quickly. If you wanted to create lean engineering concepts and transparent buildings that were not energy
72
73
With the building technology,

the operating interfaces have
also become more complex. They
are normally more compact
these days than in the picture,
but the requirements placed on
users and facility managers alike
have grown. The same applies
to manufacturers: They have to
ensure that control elements are
intuitively understandable and
that the user does not suffocate
in a jumbled mess of letters.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. M. Nobert Fisch is Professor of technical building services, structural physics and energy design at the Technical University Carolo Wilhelmina
zu Braunschweig. He is also a managing partner of the engineering consultancy
firm EGS-plan in Stuttgart and of energydesign braunschweig GmbH.
Dipl.-Ing. arch. Stefan Plesser has been a research associate at the Institute for
Building and Solar Technology of the Technical University of Braunschweig since
2002 and is also a managing partner of energydesign braunschweig GmbH
Dipl.-Ing. arch. Thomas Wilken has been a research associate at the Institute for Building and Solar Technology of the Technical University of Braunschweig since 2001. Alongside teaching, his work at the Institute includes
designing energy concepts for buildings and residential complexes and research into the energy efficiency of non-residential buildings.
sinks and that offered a high level of comfort, then you had
to take all aspects into account from the very start; location,
building envelope, heating, ventilation, cooling and building
automation. In an increasing number of projects, the complex requirements led to an expert being brought in at an early
stage, who could bring all of the various threads from design,
construction and engineering together in a single integrated
concept. Since then, the energy designer has been a fixture on
demanding projects and an indispensable partner for building owners and architects.
But these projects also made another thing clear. The complex designs and demanding planning process made it necessary to improve the quality standards in building construction
The EVA project

For us, the controversial discussions surrounding glass architecture and our own findings from the research projects was
the impetus to put the above mentioned innovative and ecological buildings, which had not gone through this optimisation phase after completion, on the test bench. We were able
to collate extensive findings relating to the actual operation
74
and operation. The efficient operation of systems in the demonstration buildings was not always successfully implemented
from the outset, despite good planning. Often it was only after
the two-year period of scientific monitoring that the desired
level of energy efficiency was reached.
of buildings from the eva project (evaluation of energy con- possible according to the plans. Common problems are syscepts for office buildings), in which some 20 buildings from tem operation times that are not adjusted to match actual use,
hydraulic problems leading to persistent operational failings,
1990 to 2002 (and other projects) were investigated,.
The first projects are coming to an end now, and their results so that for example the opportunity of having efficient fresh
air cooling remains unutilised, along with sub-optimal reguare wide-ranging.
The energy efficiency of modern office buildings is on lation of building automation systems.
average around twice as high as that of buildings from the
The lack of clear standards from the planning stage for the
1960s and 70s. The mean value for annual primary energy operational phase, deficient quality assurance and a lack of
consumption of around 280 kWhPE/(mngfa) was, however, information and training for users, clearly result in the fact
also significantly higher than the characteristic values for the that the designs are not always realised in practice. The potendemonstration buildings, i.e. the standard that is technically/ tial means of monitoring a buildings operation are often not
economically attainable. At the same time the energy con- suited to verifying the buildings complex regulation and consumption of naturally ventilated buildings was around 35% trol strategies, or to optimising them.
lower than that of buildings predominantly equipped with
In order to utilise efficiency potentials during operation,
mechanical ventilation systems.
igs will place new focus on optimising building operation
It could also be established that the buildings under inves- from an energy use point of view. Alongside integrated plantigation, unlike many buildings from the 1970s afflicted with ning, from our point of view continuous quality assurance
sick building syndrome, were largely able to offer a high level over the whole life cycle is of increasing importance. Buildof user comfort. The measurements revealed significant limi- ings will achieve a higher degree of energy efficiency through
tations only in the case of overheating in the summer and co2 the attainment of higher levels of quality in the planning, conconcentrations. However, the detail of the investigations shows struction and operational phases.
further surprises. Thus in 60 office rooms, no correlation was
Further improvements in our building stock from an energy
detected between the proportion of the facade that was glazed point of view are possible and necessary. We have good planand the number of hours of overheating with a room temper- ning tools at our disposal. The path leads to greater quality
ature in excess of 26c. The cause is presumably the strong from the initial conversation with the building owner right
influence of user behaviour, particularly through incorrect through to end use. A precondition of this is that building ownuse of the solar protection system and continuous ventilation ers understand the need for quality. In our experience, building
in summer. What was not expected was the fact that, in the owners generally proceed on the assumption that a building
case of mechanical ventilation, only a small number of rooms operates in a plug&play manner. This is not the case with
exhibited an increased co2 concentration compared to win- modern buildings. They require a greater degree of attention
dow ventilation. This, too, is an indication of the importance - and this must be recognised and taken into account.
of user behaviour. Surveys of the employees by the University of Karlsruhe of the eva study confirmed the measurement
results. The subjective perception of room temperature (too
warm/too cold) had a significant effect on the level of satisfaction with the rooms overall climate. But more important
is the users opportunity to influence the rooms climate. The
user must be given effective opportunities to influence the climate of the room in which they are working.
The functional analyses of building use showed that they
often do not function in the manner (or as well) as should be
75
240335 S
1312422 E
Photo by Neil Emmerson
Robert Harding World Imagery
Getty Images
76
77
VELUX Insight
Architecture for people building with VELUX.
Glenn Murcutt :
Touching the Earth
lightly
By Franoise Fromonot
Photos by Reiner Blunck and
Anthony Browell
Australian landscapes with their incredible
scope and variety hold a special fascination for
many. For Glenn Murcutt, the countrys most
renowned architect, this is the starting point for
each of his designs. Murcutt has mastered the
skill of subtly incorporating the often concealed
patterns of a particular landscape its climate,
topography, geology and the course charted by
the sun and moon into his architecture.
As the first Australian architect to have

acquired international fame (demonstrated
by the award of the Pritzker Prize in 2002),
Glenn Murcutt is in many respects an exception, even a curiosity. He has worked in Sydney for forty-five years without assistants
or offices, and he has always refused to work
outside his own country, where practically
his only creations are houses. The clients of
this solitary craftsman must register on a
waiting list of several years. In spite of, or
perhaps because of, this approach with
regard to the professional practice of architecture, particularly radical in this era of globalisation, Murcutt has become an authority
in a domain, which during the course of his
career has gained significant importance in
the public realm, that of sustainable architecture. And he remains one of the most
outstanding representatives of an ecological functionalism that he helped to invent.
According to Murcutt, a building must
be a climatic device acting as a mediator
between Man and Nature, with minimal costs
and environmental impact, and an architectural translation of the landscape in which it
is located. The planning and structuring of
78
his houses take into account solar and lunar

movements, the angle of the sun according to
latitude, dominant winds, rains, topography,
and geology; information specific to each site,
which Murcutt incorporates into the design
in the same way as domestic functions. Canopies, roofs, mobile faades, porous walls
and rainwater pipes become architectural
elements in their own right, contributing to
the functioning of the buildings and sculpting their aesthetic. Economy of materials and
non-renewable energy resources is one of
the key aspects of the design of the buildings
and the sizing of each of their elements. No
house is equipped with air conditioning, nor,
more often than not, heating. These sophisticated cabins potentially find answers, inherent in the very substance of their envelope,
to all types of climatic situations. However,
if Murcutt endeavours to transfer the local
conditions into each project through architecture, he also likes to affirm the contrast
between natural landscapes and the light
appearance of his exteriors, with spirited
structures, favouring ordinary materials
metal, corrugated iron, wood, etc. and
standard industrial products, which he dis-
Opposite Outside terrace of

the Ball-Eastaway house in
Glenorie. Here, Glen Murcutt
creates outdoor areas which
are protected against wind
and weather but still give the
occupants the feeling that they
are in the middle of nature.
tinguishes through highly elegant details of

construction.
Murcutt truly worships the Australian
landscape and its genius loci. He has inherited from his family his pioneer spirit, his individualist philosophy, directed towards life
within nature, inspired from his childhood
by Henri David Thoreau and the American
transcendentalists. His reading and his experience as a student gave him an interest in
Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Jrn
Utzon and Californian Case Study Houses.
His trips to Europe in the sixties taught him
European and American modernism. The
rediscovery of its regional traditions vernacular, rural and industrial buildings, but
above all the rich culture of Aboriginal territory that Australia experienced during the following decade, in the search for
a cultural identity freed from the models
imported by European colonisation, has had
a strong influence on him. Resting on piles
with long planes, flowing and stripped bare,
the most significant creations at the start of
his career (such as his farmhouse in Kempsey in 1975) owe as much to the minimalism and formal order of Mies van der Rohes
79
P. 79 Topographic section of
the Meagher house in Bowral,
New South Wales. In Australia,
the weather is similar to Europe
except that everything is the
other way round: the warming
sun shines the north and the cold
wind blows from the south.
Farnsworth house as to agricultural buildings from the Australian countryside.

It is a type of critical fusion between
international modernism and local traditions that Murcutt has worked on over the
years. This synthesis has led him to develop,
through the spatial and ethical principles
reaffirmed with each project, a type of
dwelling that blends the idealised simple
life of the gentle savage, in harmony with
a fundamental nature and the benefits of
modern comfort. This type of house endures
in several recurring aspects, presented over
the years according to the site and the client.
A long and low shape distributes the entire
domestic activities along its length. The two
main facades, one opaque and low, the other
high and open, allow for the complementary
sensations of support and opening, in connection with solar movements, the views
and the winds; they shelter respectively the
serving space and the served space. The climatic exterior negotiates the relationship
between the cabin and the location, weaving
an instable frontier between the spaces of
life and the large dimension of territory.
Certain works by Murcutt witness his social
80
commitment towards the representatives of

the continents native culture, which inspired
him so much. In the nineties, with the MarikaAlderton house, he tested a prototype residence for an Aboriginal family in the tropical
north, entirely prefabricated with no glazing.
A large hall on piles surrounded with tipping
shutters, which opens in the day and closes
at night like a flower. In Kempsey, close to
one of his first houses, he converted a tractor
hangar into a studio using mainly recycled
wood. His rare larger scale projects, like the
Yvonne and Arthur Boyd art centre in Riversdale (199699), are treated like large houses,
adapting the same architectural and above
all climatic principles to collective and public pressure. In the image of life itself, Murcutt conceives each building as a temporary
shelter on a journey into the vast territory
of the continent; a moment of landscape
rather than a truly perennial construction.
His architecture seeks to excess the transitory character of human occupation on the
planet. Taking for his own a proverb attributed to Aborigines from Western Australia,
Murcutt has always determined to touch
the earth lightly. His work is also a gamble
Opposite Section of the Meagher

house. Like many of Murcutts
houses, the roof is separated
from the outer walls in this
case, plastered by horizontal window strips. This enables
a great deal of daylight to enter
the house without overheating
the interior or diminishing the
privacy of the occupants.
Below With thin steel posts as

its only means of support, the
Ball-Eastaway studio house rises
above the slightly inclined slope,
becoming a perfect symbol of
Glenn Murcutts motto Touch
the earth lightly.
on the ability of an individual, working on a

local scale on very small projects, to influence the world in a lasting way.
81
Below Cross-section of the

Ball-Eastaway house.
The living area with its vaulted
ceiling receives daylight
primarily through ceiling-high
windows on the front sides
and several roof windows.
Opposite Only a long wooden

bridge connects the house to the
land on which it is built. Murcutt
dispensed with a prestigious
entrance. The house looks like an
object that has been temporarily
deposited and could disappear
without trace at any time.
BALL-EASTAWAY
HOUSE,
GLENORIE (SYDNEY)
NSW, 19801983
The Ball-Eastaway house is an exemplary illustration of Murcutts

approach and ethics, and one of the
most beautiful successes of his domestic architecture from the eighties. Here, Murcutt tested for the first
time the possibility of a light dwelling, entirely made from corrugated
iron, creating the frugal and refined
house, which was to become his
style of construction, and thereby
launching his international reputation. This small, very economical
house (less than 100 square metres
for around 40,000 Australian dollars at the time) was requested by a
couple of painters from Sydney, who
wanted to leave city life and install
themselves in the forest close to the
national park which borders Sydney
to the north.
The house is raised on thin piles in
order not to disturb the natural flow
of water on the slope; it only touches
the rock with seven pairs of posts
made of thin metallic tubes. Two
wide, flat gutters channel rainwater
from the rounded roof towards the
downpipes, monumentalised by their
symmetrical nature at the two extremities of the abode. They constitute an effective method of drainage
as well as an expression of the im-
82
portance of water in this dry, highly

flammable landscape.
The living spaces are divided in the
layout according to the symmetries
and balances suggested by the construction of the house, the climatic
movements and the views. Kitchen,
bathroom and storage, lit from
overhead by fanlights, are grouped
against the entrance faade, which
is totally blank and southeast-facing,
on the side of the inclement winds.
The house has two verandas. This
traditional space in the Australian
house is here reinterpreted as a place
archetypal of the ambiguity between
the outside and the inside. To represent the gradual transition between
the built order and the natural order,
Murcutt stripped the floor and the
roof of the large veranda of their finishing materials, at the boundaries
with the earth and the sky. To reinforce the impression of a precarious
but serene balance between the building and the landscape, he suspended
above the rocky plateau, which extends under the house, a fragile access bridge, perfectly horizontal, and
treated the two long vertical walls as
thin suspended planes.
83
28 metres long and only 5.80

metres, the Littlemore house
profits from its position next
to a public park. This acts as an
extended garden to which the
living areas are aligned.
84
85
Opposite left Cross-section of

the Littlemore house with daylight concept.
Opposite The narrow section in
the north with corridor and auxiliary rooms passes through the
whole house and receives light
through roof windows along its
entire length.
Left Like a tower and almost
without windows, the roadfacing facade of the building
reaches towards the sky. Here
as well, Murcutt dispensed with
prestigious features, especially
in view of the fact that the house
is not oriented to the road but
to the adjacent green area at
the side.
LITTLEMORE HOUSE,
WOOLLAHRA (SYDNEY),
NSW, 19831986
86
Situated in a residential quarter of

terraced houses in east-central Sydney, and dating from the Victorian
era, the Littlemore house was the
first project for Murcutt in a relatively dense urban context. Instead
of opening the house on its small side
like the neighbouring buildings, Murcutt pivoted the principal direction
90, so the residents could benefit
from a large north-facing faade.
Damp rooms and passageways are
brought together on the other side,
backed against the long adjoining
blank south-facing wall, in a narrow continuous strip lit naturally via
the roof. Two metallic pavilions used
as living spaces are transplanted
onto this spine, largely glazed and
equipped with the usual devices for
controlling air and light. At square
level, a screen of paved glass protects the intimacy of the kitchen
and filters the views into the interior. On the first floor, the childrens
bedrooms are conceived as small
split-level apartments based on
the model of an artists studio, giving an appearance of height in relation to the clear space of the square.
They are lit and ventilated naturally
by adjustable glass louvres, doubled
on the outside with aluminium Vene-
tian blinds. The beds are hoisted at

mezzanine level above work and play
space. Murcutt removed the window
breasts from the free-flowing faade
to be able to place a horizontal handrail at the border between the two
materials of which it is composed,
which visually increases the vertical
size of the lower level and reinforces
the urban character of the faade.
Even in the city, the landscape informs the architecture.
Glenn Murcutts architecture shows the

transitory character
of human occupation
on the planet. Taking
for his own a proverb
attributed to Aborigines
from Western Australia,
Murcutt has always
determined to touch
the earth lightly.
87
Opposite The corrugated metal

roofs contrast starkly with the
solid, ochre-coloured plastered
walls of the house. The eaves
were designed in such a way
that sunshine reaches deep into
the living areas only in Winter.
Top right As in many of his buildings, Murcutt divided the rooms

of the Meagher house into two
sections, offset from each other:
on the left is the guest apartment
and, on the right, the main house.
Bottom right On the inside,

white ceilings ensure basic
glare-free lighting. The light
from the north is filtered by
blinds before it enters the room
through the glass facades.
Next page The tanks on the south

side of the house can hold 33,000
litres of rainwater. Together
with a biological sewage system,
they make the house relatively
independent of the public water
supply and removal system.
MEAGHER HOUSE,
BOWRAL, NSW,
19881992
This country house is located around

150 kilometres southwest of Sydney,
in the relatively continental climate.
The land, which belongs to an agricultural property, consists of a sloping prairie planted with magnificent
eucalyptus. The view is beautiful
from the summit towards the valley,
lit by the sun from the north. As always, Murcutt favoured this direction in the distribution of the building,
and installed it at the foot of the
slope to protect it from the southerly and south-westerly winds and
to conserve the natural outline from
the crest. The house is relatively independent from urban networks for
its provision of water and waste disposal, and its corrugated iron reservoirs have a storage capacity of
rainwater of up to 33,000 litres.
A guiding course connects the house
to access routes, and forms the structure of the entire layout according to
an almost cinematographic, linear
course, all the while taking different
shapes according to the nature and
function of the distributed spaces.
The construction combines double
brick masonry and a silver-coated
metallic structure, which carries the
vast roof of corrugated iron, raised
up towards the north to let the low
88
sun enter during the winter. The edge

of the canopy is calculated to cut the
angle of the vertical sun in summer
and protect the windowed faade
from the heat. From the outside, the
glazed fanlight which crowns this
large faade reflects like a continuous image the spectacle of the landscape; from the inside, it is a long
transparent window, which extends
from one room to another, taking on
in passing the high views over the
moving foliage of the tended eucalyptus. By letting the natural light in
at every hour, it makes the residents
adapt their rhythm to natural cycles.
The scenes from certain openings,
level or slanted, frame their chosen
views of the surroundings; their sliding shutters of wooden slats filter the
view, moderating the intensity of the
external light and preserving the intimacy of the rooms, whilst letting the
breezes circulate.
89
90
91
Reflections
Different points of view: ideas beyond

those of everyday architecture.
The knack of
Lightness
By Ed van Hinte
To touch the earth lightly is a fitting metaphor for a
life style with little impact on the environment. In
architecture, product design and transportation
engineering, the concept of lightness implies efficiency and a sparing use of resources. However, many
of the advantages of lightness are not fully appreciated by traditional methods of life-cycle assessment.
There is a certain rank order in the current estimation of

importance of saving weight. In the aerospace industry, lightness has always been crucial for the simple reason of profitability.
We look for lightness in everything we carry and wear ourselves,
such as clothes and (electronic) accessories, since we like to live
comfortable lives. Until now lightness hardly has been an issue
in everything else that mankind produces, including larger consumer goods, means of transportation over land and water and
of course buildings. The rapidly rising costs of energy, increasing co2 emission and the gigantic amount of waste that we produce are now changing this picture. We are learning that saving
weight may contribute to a more light-footed presence of people on the planet and that this change comes with a beneficial
increase in flexibility and productivity. Lightness is turning into
an interesting incentive for innovation.
Photo: Yale Joel / Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images
The rediscovery of lightness

Lightness is certainly not an entirely new issue. Rather it is
a theme that used to be common sense among our primeval predecessors, then faded away into obscurity and is now
gradually regaining interest. In ancient times, when mankind
mainly led a nomadic life, everything simply had to be light
because people had to be able to take their possessions with
them when they were wandering from one place to the next
to gather food. At a certain point they discovered the possibility of exploiting animals. The invention of the wheel, and
particularly of ships, considerably increased the amount of
weight that could be transported. At the end of the 18th century, the invention of the steam engine heralded the age of a
more abstract form of transportation energy that was generated by burning fossil fuels.
All these changes coincided with the evolution of materials that were used in artefacts, mainly expressed in a rapidly
increasing use of metals; so much so that from about 1850
an almost religious belief arose in the potential of iron and
steel as an incentive for progress. Metal idolatry reached its
peak around the Second World War but from then on plastics started to conquer material markets, mainly due to the
fact that they allow production of complex forms on a massive
scale. Nevertheless the awareness among the general public
that there was a certain price tag to the ever growing con-
92
sumption of energy and materials, and that mass production

and consumption had truly damaging effects, did not occur
until fairly recently.
Towards the end of the 1960s, a tool was developed to analyse energy consumption of any given product during production and use, the well-known lca, or Life Cycle Assessment;
but it did not start to include pollution effects until about
fifteen years later. Now the lca is fully established and is
certainly useful in comparing different solutions in terms of
environmental friendliness. Strangely though, because of this
comparative use, it has some drawbacks that tend to be overlooked. It is not particularly helpful in supporting radical strategic change towards lightness. Weight reduction happens
to be a consideration that seems to be of minor importance
when viewed according to lca conventions. A good example
of this is the building industry. Throughout the life cycle of
a house or an office facility, energy consumption for climate
control accounts for by far the largest contribution to environmental effects. For this reason, builders and life cycle analysts
tend to conclude that losing a couple of tons of concrete will
not make a meaningful difference to any building, and from
the lca point of view that is correct. Nevertheless, the building industry as a whole is responsible for about one quarter
of all transportation and produces one third of all waste. So
despite the modest contribution of weight to the environmental effects of one building, the total sum is certainly not negligible. This argument becomes stronger with my proposition
that the weight of buildings could be as much as 95 percent
lower than it is today. To achieve this goal, an entirely new
concept for the building process would be needed, involving
prefabrication of light building elements and exclusion of the
transportation of heavy materials, like sand, that always are
available at the building site anyway. Imagine the implications: one truck with material supplies for a dwelling instead
of twenty. Of course this change cannot be made overnight.
It requires both technological development and the design of
an identity for lightness in relation to buildings.
Lightweight materials, lightweight structures
Most people tend to associate lightness with light materials.
Although that thought is understandable, it certainly does not
93
Below Buckminster Fullers 4D

towers consisted of a central
pylon from which the individual floor levels were suspended.
Buckminster planned to set
them down by zeppelin at previously uninhabited places, for
instance at the North Pole.
Right I have built very little.

I have invented many castles
in the air, said Frei Otto about
himself. Without doubt, he
made the building of tents in the
industrialized world reputable
again: Above is a Bedouin tent
in Morocco, below the Olympia
Park in Munich.
moving aerodynamic skin around such towers to minimise

the load caused by wind forces.
Despite being a visionary, Buckminster Fuller was also a
man of the metal era. But he had an open mind and if he had
known about todays structural possibilities, there is no doubt
that he would have employed them eagerly. Nowadays plastics
combined with strong fibres present new opportunities to create even lighter structures than Buckminster Fuller envisioned.
Fibre reinforced polymers are commonly known as composites.
Rather than being a new kind of material, they should be considered a type of structure that evolves from combining materials with different properties. Composite thinking has been
around for ages and can be traced back to early human cul-
94
Courtesy, The Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller
Photo: Victoria Pearson / Taxi / Getty Images
constitute the whole story. A structure has to distribute forces

and to design it properly, it is necessary to consider the properties of materials, the processes by which they are formed and
the functional requirements they have to fulfil in the design
concept. Lightness requires fine-tuning and integration of everything from bearing loads to climate control and decoration.
Here is an example to clarify that lightness is not just a material issue: aluminium is considered a light material and concrete is thought to be quite heavy. In fact, aluminium has a
slightly higher density than concrete. It is just that for a certain structural solution you only need little aluminium and it
can be worked to a far more refined level of precision. Moreover, aluminium can deal with both tension and compression
stresses, whereas concrete can only handle the latter. That is
what causes aluminiums lightweight reputation. The great
visionary engineer and architect Richard Buckminster Fuller
expressed this more complete viewpoint in stating: In architecture form is a noun; in industry form is a verb. He was
an advocate of lightness, or lightfulness as he called it, long
before it required the urgency it now has, and already foresaw the challenges we are facing now. He is most famous for
his principle of the dome structure. Many of those were built.
He also designed ultra-light 4D-towers, so named because of
the inclusion of the factors of time and change. One of those
designs had ten metal stories and built-in furniture, and it was
supposed be flown to its site by a Zeppelin, the largest rigid
airship ever built. It could carry 60 tons, which is not a lot
for a ten-storey building. In a cartoon, the designer even suggested flying the entirely self-supporting tower to the North
Pole, dropping a bomb on the sight, filling the icy crater with
cement to create a foundation, and consequently placing the
structure in it. Buckminster Fuller obviously had no idea that
the disappearance of the northern ice cap would already be
foreseeable. But in terms of structure his vision is important,
for in his 4D-towers he applied the tensegrity principle. This
term is a contraction of the words tensional and integrity.
Tensegrity implies the radical distribution of tension and compression forces in a structure in order to minimise the use of
materials. Buckminster Fullers towers consist of a column in
the middle to take up all compression. The floors hang from
steel cables attached to the top. Later the designer devised a
Photo: Jakob Schoof
P. 92 Visionary of lightweight
construction and ecological
thinking: Buckminster Fuller
demonstrated a space framework made of rods in 1959,
which he had already used for his
geodesic domes.
95
Economy in the sky:

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner
is the first airplane with a
fuselage made mostly of
carbon fibre reinforced plastics.
It is meant to carry 200 to 300
passengers in a particularly cost
and energy-saving manner.
Photo: BOEIng IMAGE
of parts becomes cheaper and the need for heavy machinery at

the building site decreases. In the end, structural building parts
can be re-used as such. (Carbon fibre reinforced polymers are
difficult to recycle, but recycling, which is an energy consuming process of destroying added value, should not be necessary,
provided the structural elements are properly designed for reuse.) This idea is in line with the currently popular cradle-tocradle principle as advocated by architect William McDonough
and chemist Michael Braungart, particularly the concept of
forever reusing parts and materials that belong to what they
call the technosphere.
tures: Pharaoh Tutanchamens chariot had wheels composed

of wood for compression and a rim of dried animal sinew for
tension. Composite bows for shooting from horseback, as used
by the Mongols and the Turks, date back at least 3,000 years.
Todays high-performance composites usually consist of long,
strong fibres in a predetermined arrangement, such as a woven
textile embedded in a strong resin. They also work according
to the principle of tensegrity: the fibres take up tension forces
and the polymer deals with pressure. A carrying structure, then,
can be engineered to take up forces in the best possible way.
It can offer the opportunity for drastic weight reduction in
buildings. If loads are considerable, like the ones to be found
in high-rise buildings or bridges, the composite is likely to be
a carbon fibre reinforced polymer. Currently this solution is

conquering the world of civil aviation. The Boeing 787 (the socalled Dreamliner), due to be delivered at the end of this year,
is the first full composite passenger aircraft. Airbus will follow
some five years later with the a350xwb. This kind of applications leads one to believe that carbon fibre reinforced polymers
are quite expensive. The opposite is true, however. Composite technology can save costs in several respects, otherwise it
would not be applied in airplanes. For buildings it is important that the entire structures life cycle is considered. The time
needed for building is almost negligible and maintenance costs
are eliminated because the applied resins do not require protection against corrosion or climatic influences. Transportation
96
Seductive Lightness: the aesthetics of economy

So far, there are not many examples of carbon-based building
structures, but one is particularly interesting. It is a 24-metre
bridge produced by Fibercore Europe and Haasnoot Bruggen
in Rotterdam. It can be mass-produced for different requirements. This one weighs about 12 tons, which is over 95 percent lighter than a concrete bridge of the same dimensions - it
can even float and it can carry about 75 tons: a demonstration of excellent structural efficiency. It was put in place in a
quarter of an hour in Dronten in the middle of the Netherlands after it had travelled to the jec composite fair in Paris.
As an initial investment, the bridge costs the same as a concrete
one. The reason for the normal price is that, because of the
quality of the materials, only very little of them are needed, a
fraction of the amount that a steel reinforced concrete bridge
would require. Weight savings and low transportation costs
usually derive from the fact that less material is needed if the
material is strong. An extensive lca study is currently being
done and it is not unlikely that this bridge will perform very
well in terms of co2 emission, because of the reduction in the
amount of material needed. Real cost savings occur later on
during use, because a polymer bridge needs not maintenance,
except for and this is where the story becomes a bit strange the railing along the side. The bridge accommodates any kind
of railing solution, but the architect decided in favour of steel,
probably according to the conventions of his profession. The
finish of the bridge is even stranger. In cars and bicycles, carbon fibre is prestigious. It is polished and shown off. The surface of this bridge, however, is covered with a thick layer of
paint, to make it look like concrete. People tend to distrust a

light bridge that is made of the same material that is used in
the most expensive cars.
Here we touch on the aesthetic side of lightness. It is possible to demonstrate that light structures can be produced and
that doing so can be profitable and advantageous to the environment, but to be seductive they also must be familiar and
trustworthy. Light structures behave differently. They may be
springy and squeaky because they have elastic properties, and
often sound hollow when you knock on them. Ways have to
be explored to help users get accustomed to lightweight environments.
There is another interesting aspect to light structural elements the possibility to re-use them, which also happens to
be a theme that lcas do not really address. Building products
like the bridge simply will not break. There could be a secondhand market. So buildings, and even cities, can become continuously flexible in a far more sustainable and rubble-less way
than they are now. Insofar as building components are not
structural, they can be designed to belong to the cradle-to-cradle biosphere. They will return to dust. Building will become
reversible, which is about as light-footed as it can get.
Ed van Hinte, MSc (Industrial Design) works as a free-lance publicist and editor, mainly for 010 publishers in Rotterdam. He teaches, organises and curates
exhibitions. He founded Lightness Studios (www.lightness-studios.nl) to stimulate development and application of lightweight structures.
97
VELUX Dialogue
Interview with Sumeet Manchanda
Architects in a dialogue with VELUX.
For the past 30 years, mankind has been using up

more natural resources than the earth can supply.
Currently, our environmental foot-print exceeds our
planets carrying capacity by a factor 1.3. But is life in
accordance with the planets resources still possible
in the industrialised world of today? According to the
founders of the One Planet Living initiative, it is.
One Planet Living:

on good terms with
Planet EartH
The ten principles of

One Planet Living:
Zero Carbon:
Achieve net CO2 emissions of zero from

One Planet Living developments
Zero Waste:
Eliminate waste flows to landfill

and for incineration
Sustainable Transport:
Reduce reliance on private vehicles and

achieve major reductions of CO2 emissions
from transport
Local and Sustainable Materials:
Transform materials supply to the point

where it has a net positive impact on the
environment and local economy
Local and Sustainable Food:
98
Transform food supply to the point where it

has a net positive impact on the environment,
local economy and peoples well-being
Sustainable Water:
Achieve a positive impact on local water

resources and supply
Natural Habitats and Wildlife:
Regenerate degraded environments and

halt biodiversity loss
Culture and Heritage:
Protect and build on local cultural heritage

and diversity
Equity and Fair Trade:
Ensure that the OPL communitys impact on

other communities is positive
Health and Happiness:
Increase health and quality of life of OPL

community members and others
D&A Spring 2008 Issue 08
The challenge ahead is clear: to support our current life style, mankind
would need 1.3 Planet Earths rather
than just one. For Western Europe
and the US, the figures are 3 and 5
planets respectively. But how to reduce ones environmental footprint
in a world driven by fossil fuels, urban
sprawl, non-returnable packaging
and short-lived production cycles?
To demonstrate that a One Planet
lifestyle is actually feasible, the British charity BioRegional and the World
Wildlife Fund (WWF) have set up the
One Planet Living global initiative.
BioRegional is working with partners
to create community developments
throughout the world which demonstrate that life within the resource
constraints imposed on us by Nature
is possible, and may even be a healthy
and happy one. After completing Beddington Zero Energy Development
(BedZED) in London in 2002, BioRegionals One Planet Living Programme
has extended its activities to other
developments in the UK, the USA,
South Africa, Portugal, China, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.
D&A How would you describe the
vision behind the One Planet Living programme? Is it about housing, about community-building,
about local food and materials supply, about alternative mobility patterns, or about all of these?
SM Essentially, it is about all of
these. Our work relies a lot on measures such as the ecological footprint
and the carbon footprint. Ecologi-
cal footprinting tells us that if everyone in the world lived the way we do
in Western Europe, we would need
three planets to support us. For people in the US, this figure is five planets. The vision of One Planet Living
is that we all need to get to a point
where we are living within one planets resources and that while doing
so, we should still be living healthy
and happy lives.
To achieve this vision, BioRegional
is developing a series of demonstration projects all around the world.
Here, we are aiming to show what
One Planet Living looks like in practice. Within their own distinct frameworks, all of these projects are trying
to put in place the products, services
and infrastructure that make it easy
for people to live in a sustainable way.
For example, we want buildings to be
absolutely zero-carbon. So that part
of the persons footprint vanishes
without the inhabitants even having to try. In addition, we want to reduce transport emissions as much as
possible, for example by introducing
electric vehicles. In the United Arab
Emirates, we are helping to develop
the sustainability strategies for the
eco-city of Masdar, planned by Foster
and Partners. Here we developed a
concept according to which there will
be no fossil-fuel based cars or buses
in the city, but only electric vehicles
powered by renewable energies.
Food accounts for another large
part of each persons ecological footprint. To diminish the food footprint
we try to put into place facilities such
as farmers markets and food deliv-
ery services, whereby residents can

access local, seasonal, low-meatand-dairy food in a convenient way.
Currently BioRegional is also
working with the 2012 Olympic
Games in London, trying to get them
as close to one-planet games as possible. For example, we are encouraging our partners to ensure that 80 to
90 percent of all transportation to
and from the Olympics will be public
transportation, such as shuttle buses
and light railways, and that the entire built infrastructure will meet our
zero-carbon criterion.
D&A Who are your scientific partners in this effort?
SM We work with the Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI) and the
Global Footprint Network. These are
both experts in ecological footprinting, and SEI in particular is also an
expert in carbon footprinting as well
as material flow analyses. Recently,
we have also started to develop inhouse expertise as both of our partners have become extremely busy
with other assignments.
D&A It has often been stressed that
for sustainable cities and communities, citizen participation is essential.
What is your experience in this matter? Do people really care about their
resource use and the resource use of
their homes? And how can their goodwill be converted into good actions?
SM No one sets out to harm the planet.
But living in a sustainable manner is
99
The emirate of Abu Dhabi is

planning the first completely
CO2-neutral garbage and automobile-free city of the world
Masdar City. Beside the architects Foster and Partner, BioRegional also participated as a
consultant in the planning.
Rendering: Foster and Partners
The starting signal for the One

Planet Living initiative was
given with the BedZED project in
south London and until today
the office for the initiative is
domiciled there. The ecological
building method and sustainable
energy supply for the settlement
planned by Bill Dunster help the
inhabitants to reduce their ecological footprint.
D&A What can be done to enable

people to reduce their environmental
footprint? How much can be achieved
merely by information and awarenessbuilding, how much by legislation and
how much by financial incentives?
SM Recent research shows that raising awareness leads to raised awareness- and not necessarily to changed
action. It is important, however, to
raise awareness about specific action people can take. There is enough
awareness about the problems of
the planet, but so far, the focus on
what people can do in their day-today lives is insufficient. We therefore
try to implement targeted awareness
100
campaigns in our partnerships, and I

know a lot of other initiatives that do
the same.
On the other hand, legislation
can definitely play a huge role. In the
UK, for example, zero-carbon homes
have been exempt from stamp duty
from 2007 onwards, and from 2016
all new homes will need to be zerocarbon. This is an example how legislation has completely changed the
debate in the UK.
What I think legislation should
not do, however, is to be too prescriptive. It should not try to define the
process by which to achieve a certain aim. That tends to hamper the
market. If legislation demands that
every new building be zero-carbon,
and then provides a broad definition
of what zero-carbon is, the market
will find its own and most efficient
route to achieve this goal.
Financial incentives can be very
effective. In the UK, for example, programmes have been set up to promote the use of insulation and of the
installation of renewable energies,
and people are increasingly taking
these up very, very quickly. None of
this would have been possible without financial incentives. Sometimes
the incentives even become obsolete
after a few years, because the markets have grown so much that there
has been a drop in prices and the amortisation periods for these measures have become shorter.
D&A What influence do patterns of
ownership in a neighbourhood have
on sustainable development? Do peo-
ple who own their homes and tend to

care more for their surroundings?
SM It is definitely easier to convince
homeowners, who see the direct savings, to install efficient energy and
water appliances. With landlords or
developers, who do not necessarily profit from the savings, things
are a little different. So, yes, ownership does matter, but we need to
find ways to get around that. Currently we are encouraging developers to take a stake in the renewable
energy infrastructure of their neighbourhood, and to establish partnerships with the energy supply
companies. By doing so they can see
long-term returns from the renewable energies they supply. Our developers in the UK, Portugal and the US
have already set up this new kind of
business model.
D&A Are the projects you support
mostly new-built, or do you also work
in existing neighbourhoods?
SM We do both. Just a few months
ago, we started a massive retrofit
project called One Planet Living in
Sutton, a borough in London. Here
we formed a partnership with a company that produces cavity wall and
loft insulation. Residents who take
part in the scheme can obtain insulation for their homes at really cheap
prices the cheapest I have ever
heard of. We are also working with
water supply companies to install
water meters that make people more
aware of their own consumption. To-
Photo: Raf Makda / VIEW
far too tough and inconvenient in the

present world. We therefore focus on
creating places that make the choice
of a sustainable life-style an easy one.
Our monitoring of the BedZED development, for example, shows that it is
possible to live on a level of 1.5 planets, or even at the One Planet level,
even in Europe. But the residents can
even go on to do much more by setting up their own businesses. One of
them has established a farmers market on site, which in turn also helped
other residents to reduce their environmental footprints. Other residents
have set up health and yoga clubs,
which help improve peoples health.
Improved health, in turn, leads people to actually use more of the walking
and cycling options that are offered to
them throughout the neighbourhood.
So, yes, the partnership with the residents is absolutely essential.
101
Up to 6000 housing units, eight

hotel resorts and 186,000
square metres of industrial land
are to be developed in the next
few years in the Sibaya district of Durban/South Africa.
The One Planet Living initiative
deliberately selected the country with the highest CO2 emissions of the continent for its
first project in Africa.
gether with the local council, we are

trying to find 23 sites for very big renewable energy infrastructure such
as a 10 MW biomass power plant or
a wind facility. Additionally, we are
exploring options with the authorities to improve walkability in the borough, improve cycling infrastructure
and so forth.
D&A What role do social networks
among the residents play in the context of the One Planet Living programme?
SM Social networks do play a huge
role. Within each community, focal
points are needed, as well as some
people who act as leaders and organisers. This very much happens at
BedZED, where residents organised
their own farmers market, car-sharing facility and sustainable barbecues, to mention just a few. There is
a residents association at BedZED,
which people use to start and advertise their own sustainable businesses.
In this context, we act as a small business incubator unit, if you like, and
this approach is being taken up in our
other developments as well.
D&A What can be done by planners
and political decision-makers to
strengthen these networks?
SM I think the communities ought
to be consulted in the planning process of every new community, as well
as when important changes happen.
Moreover, planners should be capable of laying out scenarios and dis-
102
playing a long-term vision, as this

is vital in getting people to understand why things need to be done in
different ways. I recently attended
a lecture by Peter Calthorpe, one of
the leaders of New Urbanism in the
United States. He described how, in
his communities, he usually laid out
three scenarios of what could happen
by 2050. When he did this, he found
out that every single time people understand the bigger picture, they
choose the more sustainable option.
We are now incorporating these
consultation and scenario-building processes in our work as well.
ple to become more nomadic. We, on

the other hand, believe that people
have to establish a link to places. We
are creating new communities in all
of these cities, and we definitely do
not want them to be all the same.
Therefore, every one of our project
managers is from his or her respective country. We simply could not do
our work without their understanding of local culture.
D&A One of the ten guiding principles of One Planet Living Communities is entitled Culture and Heritage.
What role do they play in sustainable
development?
SM We do not really focus on comparing. Nor do we create a kind

of tick box type of measurement system. We do, however, set
up an association in every community that runs an annual survey of people and their happiness.
When we conceptualise a new community, we ask ourselves: what
would make a child, a construction
worker, an elderly couple, happy
here? With everyone involved, we
ask: why would they be happy living or working in these neighbourhoods, rather than somewhere else?
For example, most conventional developments only consist of flats,
whereas in our developments there
are always community facilities. This
may be a crche, or more play areas
than elsewhere suitable for different
age groups. For our development in
China, we built a sort of open-air theatre for the local opera. This had not
been part of the original programme,
SM A sense of place and of belonging to it is critical for people to take

action for their living environment.
We therefore place a strong emphasis on local culture and heritage. If
people understand why the place
they inhabit is special, they are more
likely to form a bond with that place,
and eventually support initiatives to
protect it.
There is another issue about
place: the whole world is becoming
increasingly boring. Whether you go
to Shanghai, Washington, Johannesburg or London, the situation is the
same. If people did not tell you where
you were you would not know; there
are the same shops, the same brands,
the same cars. That encourages peo-
D&A How do you measure the quality of living on a city or neighbourhood scale, to make the success of
your developments comparable?
Photo: Moreland Developments
Design: Pelicano SA
The site plan of the One Planet

Living project at Mata de Sesimbra in Portugal. Green corridors are also meant to uphold
the interrelationship of the natural habitats in the area after
completion.
but we established it through a workshop we did with the local residents,

government representatives, the design team and the developer.
Quality of Living is about needs and
how they are defined by the individual and by the community. A whole
industry (the advertising industry)
is based on creating needs that do
not exist beforehand, or were not
assigned any preference by the people. Can a similar approach be taken
to create the need for a sustainable
life style?
I think there is an element of creating the need, but it is equally important to avoid patronising people
and talking down to them. Showing that what you try to achieve is,
in fact, common sense, and setting
up concrete examples are the best
things you can do.
Additionally, we try to create a
market for more sustainable products and services, as well as to create an awareness for the negative
aspects of existing products. So in
some cases we create a need for a
new kind of consumption, whereas in
others, we try to help people understand that they need to cut out some
aspects of consumption altogether.
D&A Environmental experts identify
three paths to sustainable development: (Resource) efficiency, consistency of human technologies with
natural systems, and sufficiency, that
is to say, the question of how much
consumption is enough for a decent
standard of life. What does the notion of sufficiency mean to you?
SM What matters is that we reach a

point where people are truly happy.
In our society, consumption is a kind
of quest for happiness. For example, people are travelling more and
more because they are not happy
just remaining where they are. We
therefore try to create places where
there is a sense of place, where there
is no need to travel beyond and go
in search of somewhere else. Essentially, this leads me back to our basic
philosophy which is to create places
where people can lead healthy, happy
lives. To me this is the only possible
approach to achieving sufficiency.
Only if you feel that you have something that is special a plate of localgrown, organic food, for example, or
a shirt of organic-grown cotton do
you start to have a feeling of contentment, and you do not feel the need to
go out and buy something else.
D&A How were your One Planet Living projects received in different regions of the world? What challenges
did you meet in trying to establish
them?
SM With One Planet Living, we deliberately targeted the countries
with the highest ecological footprint on every continent: the US,
the UK, South Africa, the United
Arab Emirates, China and Australia.
Within these countries, we focused
on the so-called aspirational housing market, which is the segment in
which most people aspire to buy their
homes, and which, hence, is also the
fastest-growing segment. In China,
for example, we focused on the everexpanding middle income group that

wants to live in apartment blocks.
The type of people we target is similar. These people consume quite a
lot they make a few flights a year,
drive cars and so on. This means that
if we succeed in changing this market segment, we will achieve a maximum effect.
We are pleasantly surprised how
well people have received our ideas
and how much they feel that this is
a shared issue between different
countries. I have been amazed that
when I went to South Africa and
China, talked to people about our intentions, they told me that this was
exactly the approach they had been
waiting for.
In terms of technology and other
detail issues, on the other hand, there
were great differences. In the United
Arab Emirates, the conditions for
construction labour became an important issue, whereas in Europe or
the US, they did not. Also, in China
and South Africa, the Renewables
market is less developed than in the
US and UK, for example. Therefore, in
these countries it is technically much
more difficult to achieve a zero-carbon building standard.
Obviously, these are difficulties in
the details, but overall we have had a
much better response than even we
had initially hoped for.
Sumeet Manchanda is an architect

and development manager with international experience in sustainable planning, building design and
construction. He is the Programme
Manager for the global One Planet
Living network of sustainable communities, managing an international
team working in six countries on four
continents. Prior to joining BioRegional, Sumeet Manchanda co-managed the construction component of
the worlds largest primary education programme, building 30,000
new school buildings over six years
as part of a World Bank project.
103
Books
REVIEWS
For further reading:
recent books
presented by D&A.
Glenn Murcutt,
Architect
Editors: Michael Tommasi,
Liisa Naar
01 Editions
ISBN 0-9775931-0-X
One of the things said of the Australian architect and Pritzker prize
winner Glenn Murcutt is that he values slowness. This is true inasmuch
as Murcutt continues to work without using a computer, has no employees and may let a client wait for up
to three years before sitting down
to the drawing board. But he subsequently makes up for this by creating buildings that leave nothing to
chance. Murcutt seamlessly integrates all design parameters in his
own unique way. He provides answers to his clients way of life, the
location and its topography, the visual axes and vegetation at the site,
the climate, amount of sunlight and
the ground conditions, creating an
architecture to which nothing more
needs to be added and from which
nothing can be taken away without
disturbing the whole.
This book has much in common
with the architect on which it focuses: the editors spent almost five
years working on this seven kilogram
compilation consisting of a book and
eight loose leaf folders. The books
104
folio format of 45 32.5 centimetres

means that Glenn Murcutt, Architect does not make for quick reading. This applies even more to the
folders, which document eight key
works of Murcutt with a hitherto unknown attention to detail. 128 fullscale sketches and drawings, some
of them on tracing paper, in addition
to photo-essays with illustrations,
some of them 45 60 centimetres in
size, do more than merely show those
details that are easily overlooked in
other publications. They also allow
the reader to follow Murcutts mode
of working with comments written
on the margins of plans and a greyish
film on parts of the pencil drawings
denoting those areas he repeatedly
erased and redrew.
The book has included short texts
by Juhani Pallasmaa and the Australian writer David Malouf as well
as a 100-plus page, excellently illustrated essay by Kenneth Frampton. It
also includes Murcutts acceptance
speech given on the occasion of receiving the Pritzker Prize in 2002 as
well as (a facsimile edition of) his correspondence with his clients Mr. and
Mrs. Simpson-Lee. For that, too, is
part of Glenn Murcutts method of
working: he selects his clients very
carefully and often enters into close
friendships with them over the years.
His preferred clientele are well educated and cultured, aware of their
goals in life and enlightened lovers
of nature.
What does this book tell us about
the architect Glenn Murcutt? Those
who have already read other books
on Murcutt or who have had the
pleasure of attending one of his lectures will find much that is already
familiar: a lone figure who has resisted the constant compulsion towards acceleration typical of our
time, an architect with a profound
knowledge of nature who often
seems more a biologist than an
architect (Juhani Pallasmaa) and

a meticulous designer who has acquired his own archetypal language
for many details of construction.
Murcutt is also shown as an urbane
lecturer touring the world, who nevertheless builds exclusively in Australia because that is the only place
where he can maintain a close relationship with his clients. The lightness of Glenn Murcutts buildings
is emphasised, which are also an
avowal of his commitment to sustainability, and the reader is treated
to a wonderfully poetic description
of living in traditional Australian
wooden houses (from the pen of
David Malouf). But the real attraction of this compilation lies more in
its outstanding illustrations than in
the texts. The format of the mainly
black and white photographs and
plans (many of a size usually only
seen in exhibitions) and the intelligent selection of the illustrations
give Murcutts work a plasticity as
if the reader were able to look over
the shoulder of the architect during
the design process.
A second question remains: who
will buy a book which is published
in a limited edition of 1000 copies
and priced at 1650 Australian dollars (around 1000 Euros)? There can
be no doubt about it: this is a collectors price, and as a collectors item
for solvent bibliophiles the Murcutt
folio is undoubtedly attractive. The
editors nevertheless emphasize that
the work is actually meant for universities and their libraries. It remains to
be hoped that these institutions can
and will raise the money, thus making Glenn Murcutts work accessible
to a broader public particularly to
a new generation of architects. And
that perhaps the texts of the book
will one day find an even bigger interested readership when the texts
are made available in a less expensive edition or online.
Sustainable
Urbanism
Urban Design with Nature
Author: Douglas Farr

John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 978-0-471-77751-9
Sustainable Urbanism is based on the
insight that our survival as a species
does depends not only on how energyefficiently we build and what cars we
drive but also, and above all, on our
lives and our lifestyles. That fact is
that the city and settlement patterns
we surround ourselves with and our
way of life are very closely linked with
each other. Douglas Farr makes this
clear at the beginning of his book with
some figures from everyday American life: the number of obese Americans has doubled since 1990. At the
same time, the USA has over a billion
car-parks, and the number of miles
driven per person is increasing every
year. So we learn from this that sustainable urban and transport planning
does not just affect the environment
but public health as well.
Until recently, Douglas Farr, an
architect and town planner from Chicago, was chairman of the LEED for
Neighborhood Development Projects
for four years. This is a committee that
has devised guidelines and criteria for
sustainable urban development in the
USA. The wealth of figures, facts and
concrete instructions for action that
makes his book relate closely to practice derives from his experience in this
post. The basic assumption that our
housing estates and cities have to become more sustainable is actually no
longer news for European town planners and local politicians. But Farr
says that this is completely different
in the USA: the concept of sustainable development has never been really fully defined in the USA before,
nor has a set of instruments for im-
plementing it been devised. And this

is precisely what the author sets out
to do: he does not just define objectives and transparent criteria for sustainable urban development, but also
proposes concrete steps for putting
it into practice.
Sustainable Urbanism is aimed
at the situation in the USA, but it is
still of interest to European readers:
Farr succeeds in presenting the enormous challenge the largest economy
in the world is facing in all its complexity. Andrs Duany, the doyen of
American New Urbanism, also compares Sustainable Urbanism with
Christopher Alexanders groundbreaking book A Pattern Language.
Duany asserts that both represent
the same holistic approach to seeing the city as a tissue of architectural and infrastructural patterns on
all levels of scale.
Farrs ideas are also greatly inspired by the ideals of New Urbanism;
catchwords like mixed use, density
and walkable neighbourhoods constantly crop up in the book. And yet
Farr criticises New Urbanism because
of its limited scope and its tendency
to elitism. He also ascribes similar
weaknesses to the existing standards of efficiency in the American
building industry, and above all to
the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, which has existed
since 1996. The initiative is omnipresent in the media, and there are already
over 40,000 LEED-accredited planners. But ten years after the start,
the number of LEED-certified buildings was still under 1,000. Giving the
USAs annual new volume of 150,000
buildings, this is no more than the
veritable drop in the ocean. Farr also
points out that, so far, the LEED criteria have focused only on individual
buildings, and taken no urban development criteria into account.
Farrs book argues for an integrated view, covering all aspects of
urban development from user involvement in the planning process to roadbuilding and legal regulation of land
ownership. Farr is also aware that it
will not be possible to change course
from one day to the next. He writes,
It took over two generations to create climate-changing sprawl and the
interlocking system of finance, land
use, transportation, and infrastructure necessary to perpetuate it.
Sustainable Urbanism consists
of four chapters. In the first, Farr defines the criteria of sustainable development and devises a strategy
for implementing it. The two following sections explore this in greater
depth in about 40 contributions by
guest authors. Then the final chapter presents 20 case studies of sustainable building projects in America,
Europe, Asia and Australia. Here
classical instances of New Urbanism like Poundbury in England are
set alongside quite un-ideological
planning like the Kronsberg district
of Hanover. This suggests that urban
development will also use quite different images in future in order to
give people a home. But style debates and design fashions have very
little to do with sustainability. So it
is about time less attention was paid
to them and more to addressing ourselves to the essentials - again.
The Roma Journeys

Authors: Cia Rinne,
Joakim Eskildsen
Foreword by Gnter Grass
Steidl Verlag
ISBN 978-3-86521-371-6
For six years, from 2000 to 2006,
the photographer Joakim Eskildsen
and the author Cia Rinne travelled
through Europe and Asia on the trail
of the Roma. They visited Roma from
France to India and from Hungary

to Finland, lived with them, formed
friendships with them and documented their living conditions and
ways of life. This book represents the
fruits of these labours a book which
is unique in three respects.
Firstly: the photographs. The
more than 240 full page photographs
by Joakim Eskildsen show the people the authors met during their travels, with their houses and dwellings,
their work, their customs and their
family lives. Despite the fact that the
authors often portray precarious living conditions, the pictures exert a
strange fascination. Only very rarely
has a photographer come so close to
members of this group, a group which
still has to contend with incomprehension and prejudices on the part of
many Europeans. Joakim Eskildsens
photographs show a life lived on the
margins of society, a way of life which
is often under threat and yet is characterised by a strong cultural identity. This sense of identity is always
closely linked to the respective place
of residence whether it is a Hungarian peasant village, a French metropolis or a Greek rubbish dump and
often enough a remnant of nomadic
life still clings to this way of life. Many
of the people portrayed in the book
or at least their ancestors endured
veritable odysseys before they were
able to establish themselves in their
present place of residence. They have
been (and still are) openly persecuted
and repeatedly expelled or forcibly
resettled, and oftentimes they have
to deal with more subtle prejudices
of non Roma persons.
Secondly: the texts. Cia Rinnes
descriptions are much more than a
mere retelling of personal experiences. She recounts the history of
the Roma, who began moving out of
northwest India in the 14th century,
arriving in Europe in several successive waves. She tells how the ances-
tors of todays Roma performed at

medieval royal courts as musicians
and troops of acrobats, where they
were tolerated rather than loved by
the rest of the population. She describes how Romani, the Roma language, developed, together with its
innumerable ramifications. And she
relates her personal encounters with
modern day Roma and their struggles for survival: as agricultural labourers, craftsmen, scrap metal
collectors, itinerant traders, or even
if the circumstances do not permit
anything else as beggars.
Thirdly: the original recordings.
Cia Rinne and Joakim Eskildsen compiled some of the songs and pieces of
music of the people they visited in an
audio CD included in the book.
The photographs and texts in the
book form two separate narrative
strands, which repeatedly come together when the story turns to the
concrete living conditions of the Roma.
The narratives can be read in parallel
or separately, but they nevertheless
have a lot in common: a keen power
of observation with an eye for details,
empathy and respect for the persons
being portrayed and their culture, but
also a healthy measure of matter-offactness. Both the photographs and
the texts show that the authors no
longer experience the Romas way of
life as foreign or exotic but as familiar terrain. Cia Rinne and Joakim Eskildsen have managed to portray the
lives of Roma from the inside, which
is more than many books on the same
subject can say of themselves.
105
Books
2 DOS ARCHITECTS
recommends
Constructing Architecture
Author: Andrea Deplazes
Birkhuser Verlag
ISBN10: 3764371900
German edition: Architektur konstruieren. ISBN 3-7643-7313-X
RECOMMENDATIONS
European architects recommend
their favourite books in D&A.
1 Pietro Carlo
Pellegrini
recommendS
La solitudine degli edifici
e altri scritti
Author: Rafael Moneo
Umberto Allemandi & C.
ISBN 88-422-0923-6 (Vol.1)
ISBN 88-422-1064-1 (Vol.2)
Rafael Moneo, the Pritzker prize-winner of 1996, belongs to a generation
of architects for whom theory and a
consideration of things theoretical
are just as important as designing
actual buildings. This two-volume
work is a collection of his own writings which, over the years, he has
composed for magazines or presentations. Volume 1 contains essays
on typology, the theory and history
of architecture and the role of technology in architecture. In Volume 2,
Moneo analyses the way in which
other great architects of today work
from Ieoh Ming Pei to Peter Eisenman and Robert Venturi.
106
Systematically structured and organised didactically, this book of over

500 pages presents basic technical
and architectural knowledge for students and people who are just starting their careers. The focus always
remains on how to get from the original idea for a design to the actually
constructed building. For this reason,
the numerous sketches and detailed
sections are supplemented with interesting articles on the history and
theory of architecture which examine
architectural elements and different
modes of construction. The book is divided into the chapters Raw Materials (Module), Components (Elements),
Building Methods (Structures) and
Buildings (Examples). The systematic approach of these chapters reflects the way in which a project
comes into existence.
J.A. Coderch de Sentmenat,

19131984
Editor: Carles Fochs
Editorial Gustavo Gili
ISBN 84-252-1418-1
LArchitettura della Citt

Author: Aldo Rossi
ISBN 88-7005-374-1
It is not geniuses we need now is

the title of a much-quoted essay
published by the Catalan architect
Jos Antonio Coderch de Sentmenat
in 1961 in Domus. Coderch, a member of Team X, was known for his unpretentious architecture, which had
its roots in life. The book takes a look
at an exhibition in Barcelona in 1988
and shows the complete lifes work of
the architect. The monograph on his
work is supplemented with essays on
Coderchs life and achievements, including some by Ignasi de Sol-Morales and Ricardo Bofill.
With this book that he published in

1966 at the age of 35, Aldo Rossi created the theoretical foundations for
his later creative oeuvre. In a time
when modernism was thought by
contemporaries to have used up all of
its credit, Rossi argued that architecture should be considered as a part of
the city and its grown structures. Although the Architecture of the City
has lost some of its influence since
the end of postmodernism, Rossis
consideration of the city as the location of the collective memory of its
inhabitants is still topical today.
Parallax
Author: Steven Holl
Birkhuser Verlag
ISBN: 978-3-7643-6436-6
Although Parallax was published

for the first time as early as 2000,
the book continues to be the most
profound analysis ever of the work
of Steven Holl written by the architect himself. Holls method of
working is highly conceptual. In Parallax, sketches and texts prevail over
photographs of constructed buildings. Holl writes about 15 projects,
using short texts called liner notes
in which he explains their central
themes. Their titles are as unusual
as they are informative, ranging
from The Chemistry of Matter to
The Pressure of Light and Porosity,
which, for example, manifests itself
in Holls student residence at MIT in
Cambridge, USA.
3 Romuald Loegler
recommends
Architecture Now!
Author: Philip Jodidio
Taschen Verlag
ISBN: 3-8228-4091-2
Philip Jodidio (*1954), internationally renowned as one of the most

popular writers on the subject of
architecture, is an art historian and
economist; he was editor-in-chief of
the French journal Connaissance
des Arts (19802002). Architecture Now! is a publication happily
coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the formation of Taschen.
Beautifully edited and illustrated, it
is a cross-section review of existing
projects, but also includes examples
of experimental architectural ideas.
35 architects and practices are presented on more than 350 pages, each
represented by only one project.
Continua:
Architectural Screens and Walls
Author: Erwin Hauer
Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN 1568984553
The Architecture of Happiness

Author: Alain de Botton
Hamish Hamilton Ltd
ISBN 0241142482
Invisible Cities
Author: Italo Calvino
Harvest Books
ISBN: 0156453800
Continua documents the unusual

but little known work of the Austrian sculptor Erwin Hauer, whose
geometrical, perforated walls and
screens are just as much works of
art as they are architectural elements. In the 1950s, Hauers unconventional structures on the buildings
of Philip Johnson, Florence Knoll and
other representatives of American
modernism excited a great deal
of interest from the media. In the
meantime, they have been almost
completely forgotten and many of
them have already been torn down.
Now, Continua, with its series of impressive photographs, brings back to
life many of the works of Hauer, who
worked as a professor at the Yale
University School of Art for many
years.
One of the most important but frequently forgotten influences on

well-being and unease is the built
environment in which most people
spend all their lives. In an easy-tounderstand and entertaining book,
Alain de Botton examines how architecture talks to us and how it
affects all aspects of human life.
Whereas many architects shrink
back from the word beauty, de Botton asks the seemingly naive question: What is a beautiful building?
and thus makes it the starting point
of an excursion into the philosophy
and psychology of architecture. In
The Architecture of Happiness, architecture is astutely presented as
a part of human life.
In his book, which is a fictitious discussion between Marco Polo and

Kublai Khan, Italo Calvino proves
himself to be the master of the fable.
But like any fable, the book also has
something to say about reality. The
conversation of the Chinese emperor
and the widely travelled Italian merchant is about cities between Europe
and 1001 nights. In fragmentary but
impressive images, Marco Polo portrays human settlements which have
never actually existed: cities without
walls and roofs, cities made of woven
strips of material, cities consisting
completely of glass and alabaster. In
the end, Invisible Cities can also be
read as a manifesto against the often
maintained interchangeability of the
places where people live.
Architektur der Erinnerung

Authors: Gunter Schlusche, Carolin
Schonemann, Christian Schneegass
Nicolaische Verlagbuchhandlung
GmbH, Berlin
ISBN: 3-89479-352-X
Architecture of Sound
Author: Pawe Kraus
RAM Publishing Company, Krakow
ISBN: 83918072-5-8
Small Houses and

Small City Houses Series
Author: Simone Schleifer
Taschen Verlag
ISBN: 3-8228-5143-4
ISBN: 3822841765
In this publication, Gunter Schlusche

presents examples of projects that
are architecture of memory the
most significant monuments and
memorial sites built in recent years
in Europe. On 180 pages, 50 projects
from 20 countries are presented, including some that are still in their
concept stages. The presentation
is accompanied by extensive visual
material and text. The publication is
available in German only.
Pawe Kraus, an art historian and

critic of architecture, tells the story
of the redevelopment of the Artur
Rubinstein Philharmonic Hall in
Lodz. This new urban intervention,
based on a design selected in a competition, replaced the historical 19thcentury building and has become the
citys new landmark. Analysing the
spatial relations in the building and
the acoustic technologies used, the
author takes a look at the characteristic features of the architects work
methodology. The surprising dynamics of the spatial layouts within the
building endow the expression architecture of sound with more than just
a metaphoric dimension. The book is
available in Polish and English.
These books offer a selection of original, imaginative projects, representing the current urban, suburban and
rural living spaces. Apart from a variety of styles and programmatic
requirements, all of them have something in common: reduction to what
is truly necessary in a house, generated through limited square footage. Unique projects, created by
world-famous designers, have been
selected to reflect the new ways of
inhabiting and experimenting with
distribution, materials, textures and
light. These projects are examples
of interior micro-urbanism, of how
design can mould a space to make
it personal, functional and aesthetically pleasing.
107
Daylight &
Architecture
issue 09
summer 2008
Giambattista Nolli:
Map of Rome, 1748
108

Daylight & Architecture: Magazine by Velux

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Titolo originale

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Daylight & Architecture: Magazine by Velux

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

DAYLIGHT &

SPRING 2008Issue 08 PATTERNS 10 Euro

Daylight & Architecture Magazine by velux

daylight & architecture

VELUX Editorial team

Gesellschaft fr KnowhowTransfer Editorial team

Touch the earth lightly Aboriginal proverb

Ross Lovegrove lights up the Viennese nights with

Since 2006, over half the worlds population has

Lightweight construction is not just a question

Living a sustainable life in practice using minimal

HANS NAMUTH / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / AGENTUR FOCUS

D&A SPRING 2008 Issue 08

The things that make architecture tick:

When Viennas Ringstrae was lit

nicate the trust of placing beautifully made, complex natural forms

Photo: Torben Eskerod

photo: Gerhard Koller/MAK

D&A SPRING 2008 Issue 08

His trademarks are stuffed animals,

at visitors with illuminated eyes. In a

Bergen and is now on show until 25

Professional daylight evaluation of

uses this information to calculate the

Daniel Libeskind, architect of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, is renowned for

D&A SPRING 2008 Issue 08

Photo: Nigel Young / Foster and Partners

Photo: Jens Ziehe Jewish Museum Berlin

Rendering: VELUX A/S

For some weeks now, Sir Norman

a gutter. The rainwater is drained

He uses ice crystals and wafts of

how it is tended, drying out. Added

Patterns of city life

PHOTO: Travelpix Ltd / The Image Bank / Getty Images

D&A spring 2008Issue 08

poetry. So, too, it now appears, traditional

Mankind as the focal point of architecture:

The fate of our planet will most likely be decided in

The earliest records of cities, dating back some 8,000

Photo: akg-images/Erich Lessing

Why is town planning important?

Left Right up to the present

By Tim Beatley and Peter Newman

D&A SPRING 2008Issue 08

Opposite Allotments in the city

Photo: Avenue Images/Index Stock/ Mitch Diamond

The Challenge of Green Urbanism

D&A Spring 2008Issue 08

Photo: Cornelius Paas/Das Fotoarchiv

Photo: Panos Pictures/VISUM

quences accepted. The ancient texts show a constant battle

Greenness in the city is good for

D&A Spring 2008Issue 08

Above Solar cells (shown here on

Below Building towers in Dubai:

Photo: Tim Beatley

Photo: Emily / fotolia.com

Designing Cities for Resilience

D&A Spring 2008Issue 08

tion of planting a million new trees in each of these cities.

Tim Beatley is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities,

Urban planning and urban reality: